It’s freezing. We’re broke. It turns out the Kid is allergic to wheat (do you know how many cheap foods contain wheat? Or how difficult it is when you rely on free school meals that are made of wheat covered wheat with a side of fricken wheat?)

So what’s a person to cook? I found a giant lump of top round roast for a mere $5.50 at the store. A couple of onions and some other stuff later and you got goulash.

Contrary to popular belief, goulash is not whatever you scrape out of the bottom of your fridge, cover in tomato sauce and sour cream and call a meal. Mine is traditional(ish) because i throw some Worcestershire sauce in (all beef tastes better with Worcestershire sauce- it’s the fish sauce of Europeans)and I cook it in a crock pot (thanks Tobes!) instead of a dutch oven.

You need:

A good sized roast. (2 pounds or more) I usually don’t care so much what the cut is as long as it’s reasonably priced and has some good fat on it.

A can of tomato paste

a quarter cup of paprika (ish)

3 sliced onions

Worcestershire sauce

beef or veggie stock*****

3 or 4 heads of chopped garlic

salt and pepper

Throw sliced onions into bottom of crock pot. Place roast on top of onions. In a bowl mix tomato paste, paprika, garlic, Worcestershire sauce (I put in a lot, probably a quarter cup or more) and enough stock to make it easy to stir but not liquidy. Also generous sprinkles of salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly and pour over the roast.

******Edited after making this like a thousand times. Skip the the stock. All you need is a tablespoon or so of water. The roast will release so much liquid that every drop of extra liquid you put in just makes for runny sauce. Really. I know it looks like a pile of dry stuff with red paste on top at first. That is OK. It won’t when it’s done.

Set crock pot to low, cover and leave for about 8 hours.

Some people use stew meat or cut the meat up before cooking. I prefer to cook it whole and then I know it’s done when it starts to fall apart with a fork.

I serve it over garlic and dill mashed potatoes and skip the sour cream on top (cause it’s in the potatoes). You can also serve it over noodles and rice, but I really like the potatoes.