A pinch of this and.....

A friend of mine gave me a tried and true recipe for goulash. I like goulash. I wouldn't want it a LOT....but I do like it every few months or so. This recipe looked an awful lot like what my Mom used to fix. Of course Mom didn't write her recipes down for the most part. She had them all in her head and they were all memorably delicious. So I copied the recipe down and decided I would make it that night. My friend told me that it made a LOT....it would feed several hungry people. I invited my daughter and her family to come over and join us.

She requested some of my homemade salad dressing that I haven't made in over a year. I'm as guilty as my Mom for not writing things down and I had to play around with the vinegar and oil until I got it "almost" right...but she was happy with it even if I wasn't 100%. I made the goulash and had SO MANY interruptions between my son and the granddaughters squabbling over Barbie clothes and shoes its a wonder it didn't turn out to be chop suey. I admit I did lose track of the seasonings and the end result was that the goulash was ..... almost too salty. It was edible but was hanging on the edge of not being so. I added another can of tomato sauce and that did help a smidgen. I was dismayed as this recipe had a lot of ingredients and had been a bit time-consuming....I didn't want to waste it.

So I started wandering through those long, dark and lonely hallways in my brain....with rows and rows of filing cabinets stuffed full of bits and pieces of trivia and long forgotten instructions. Ah.....the brain....she is a wonderful thing. I remembered that my mom told me that if you get too much salt in something to put a little sugar in it. I did that and it salvaged the meal.

This goulash is a good recipe...just be careful with the salt. There are several salty ingredients and maybe my measuring wasn't off.......because I couldn't find the regular salt (SOMEONE had moved it) so I used sea salt and maybe you should use less of that....I'm not sure. If anyone knows, please tell me. Anyway, the recipe is called Bobby's Goulash by Paula Deen. Its very good.....just be careful with the salt and oh yeah...I didn't put quite as much Italian seasoning in as called for. This recipe needs about 1.5 hours time....so allow for that. Summing it up....the goulash, tossed green salad with garlic, vinegar and oil dressing and iced tea. YUM.

UPDATE*** Since posting this, it has come to my attention that quite a few people who have made this recipe complained about it being too salty. WOW....maybe I didn't make a mistake after all. It is felt that the recipe has errors on it and that everywhere you see TABLESPOON ....you should use TEASPOON instead and it will turn out A-OK. So remember that...substitute TEASPOON for TABLESPOON. I read this in the comments section for this recipe on their site.