Beef goulash

This may not be an authentic goulash, but when the recipe calls for an entire bottle of wine I'm pretty much sold. Just the kind of dish that's made for a cool autumn evening. I bought a variety of red peppers to get a nice combination of flavours: the usual ginormous red peppers that all the s'markets have; a couple of small and craggy organic peppers; and several hot red peppers that looked like they could prove deadly.

I tried one of the smaller hot peppers to see how hot it really was, and it resulted in watering eyes, coughing, and numb lips. Fun! So I only put one of those in. I added another larger one, but due to the watering/coughing/numbness was unable to test it first. So this ended up being quite a spicy little goulash...

Beef goulash
adapted from this recipe

3 lbs stewing beef
2 huge onions, halved and cut in thin rings
10-12 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 sweet red peppers, julienned
2 hot red peppers, in rings/minced5 tbsp(ish) tomato paste (I just used whatever was in the freezer)
3 tbsp mild* paprika
1/2 tbsp smoked paprika
1 can beef broth
1 bottle red wine

Preheat the oven to 325. Brown the stewing beef in a bit of grapeseed oil and set aside. Saute the onions in the same pot in a bit of olive oil until they've softened, then add the garlic and saute a bit more. Set these aside. Add more oil, then toss in the sweet red peppers. Saute them until they've softened as well. Add the tomato paste and cook a bit, stirring, until the peppers are coated. Then add back the beef and onion/garlic mixture, along with the hot red peppers.Toss in the mild and smoked paprika, along with some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir the mixture and let it cook for a minute or so. Add in the beef broth and the wine and stir it all up. Let the mixture come to a simmer, then pop it in the oven (first placing some foil under the lid of the pot to ensure a nice, tight seal). Let it cook for an hour or so, then reduce the temperature to 250. Let it cook for another two or more hours until the meat is fork tender.

Serve over whatever you like - rice, potatoes, egg noodles, or just sop up the juices with some nice bread. You could also stir in some sour cream; I picked up some Tofutti non-dairy sour cream to try.

*I'd normally go with hot, but I wasn't sure how spicy this would turn out to be. If your peppers aren't very hot I'd chance it and up the heat.