My mom made a dish my entire childhood, which she called “Goulash.” What cracks me up is that “Goulash” sounds like it should be something different but it is a “Hamburger Helper” like dish for real. I looked it up. I make it similar to my mom but can’t help but throw in some spice!

Ingredients (in order of use):

Goulash – 20 minutes

1 Tbsp. olive oil

4 hot Italian turkey sausage OR a pound of any ground meat

½ onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 can diced tomatoes (I usually chop up the tomatoes because my kids do not like chunks.)

1 ½ cans of water – use tomato can

8 oz. elbow pasta (half of a box)

¼ cup tomato paste

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

¼ tsp. red pepper flakes

salt and pepper

Let’s Cook!

Heat a pan with olive oil (a deep pan to hold all of the ingredients.) Take sausage out of the casing and divide into bite size pieces. Cook while you chop the onion and garlic. Add both to pan and sauté with salt and pepper for about 5 minutes. Add all the other ingredients, bring to a boil and cook for 8 minutes. Done!! I am not kidding!!

While this was cooking, I made two salads. One is a cucumber salad that my neighbor used to make for an afternoon snack when I was a kid. It is just chopped cucumbers, salt, pepper and 2 Tbsp. of apple cider vinegar. My kids ate the salad before I could get dinner on the table. It is the easiest thing to make – your kids can make it. If your kids like pickles, they will love this simple salad.

I also made an all lettuce salad with 1 head of romaine, 1 head of butter lettuce and 2 cups of baby kale. Simple, super healthy and light!