Recipe: Goolash

This is a Frugal Recipe!

This recipe was always my favorite growing up and one of the few that I actually learned from my mom. My mom went back to work when I was in high school and worked a lot of nights or was too tired to really cook when she got home. Going back to work after about 15 years and being on her feet all day I'm sure was really hard on her physically. Anyway! It's super cheap and easy!

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. elbow noodles (about 4 cups)
V8 Vegetable Juice (the big bottle or the big can will work. The can is a lot cheaper than the bottle, but when I can find the bottle really cheap I buy the low sodium)
1 can stewed tomatoes (optional)

Cook elbow noodles as per directions. Brown ground beef. If you are adding stewed tomatoes when beef is done cooking, drain the fat, then add stewed tomatoes. I cut them up with my spoon. You can also add some of the vegetable juice to warm it up while the noodles are finishing. When noodles are finished, drain noodles, put them back in pot and add ground meat mixture and rest of veggie juice and heat up.

We usually eat on this for two days and it goes great with Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning! Yum!

You don't have to use V8. That is the kind I like after trying the Great Value brand. And I wouldn't recommend Tomato Juice either.

When my mom was on a diet she used to make up a bunch of noodles and for lunch or dinner she would put some in a bowl and pour V8 in it and put it in the microwave. No meat!

I've also heard of people adding corn to it.

We didn't grow up with the stewed tomatoes, but when my husband (who is the better cook) and I first got married and I made this for the first time, he insisted that we add stewed tomatoes in it. My feelings were really hurt. It was the first time I had cooked and I felt he thought it wasn't' good enough. I was telling my dad about it and I said, "And you know what the worse part about it was?...It was better!"

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**I'm making this for dinner tonight and hopefully I remember to take pictures and post them later. I'm know I'm a visual person when it comes to food. I can't really read a recipe and think, "Mmmm! That sounds good!")