Adding here that I know this dish cries out for peppers, but my Dad does not eat them. Nor celery. Nor mushrooms. The only reason I can get away with a bit of onion is it is translucent so less noticeable.

I found several versions of Hungarian meatballs in tomato sauce, but none with kidney beans, so perhaps they are optional as far as the spirit of the dish . . .

Dad likes 3 beans salad, so that might be a way to honor the kidney bean part, to serve that as a side dish. He also likes green beans . . .

This recipe from the UK/Delia looks fab, serving over spinach noodles, which also ironically I can get at the store. Dad unfortunately would probably freak, even though they don't have a particularly strong spinach taste. https://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/international/european/hungarian/meatballs-in-goulash-sauce

Why not make it EXACTLY as written the first time? That is probably what he wants AND what I do with any new recipe the first time. I only change and adapt after that.

Yes I can do that, just wondering how to serve it, what kind of pasta/noodle to dish the sauce over. Can't get egg noodles anywhere right now . . .

As a side note, Dad will probably complain about the kidney beans. When this woman and her husband were alive, we often ate with them at dinner parties so they got to know my Dad's super picky tastes, and would often rib him about it. My Mom never made this dish, but I think my Dad would like it because the sauce isn't very spicy. Ava and my Mom would often commiserate about how depressing it was to try and cook for my Dad . . .

One of their favorite jokes was about watching my Dad pick the raisins out of cinnamon raisin toast . . . my Grandmother/Bubbe used to do that for him. That man can search out an errant raisin from 40 paces . . .

Rice or mashed potatoes are always a good subsitute for noodles. I have made noodles from a recipe I found on here, they are not my favorite thing to spend time on, lol. If he doesn’t like kidney beans, just omit them for sure!

My husband picks out celery and onions, if too large. You might also use rigatoni or macaroni. My hubby is also one who does not like highly spiced. If he likes English peas or green beans, they would be a good side for extra color.

Have you discussed your plans with your dad? I know from personal experience that some things may be said on a whim and then either forgotten or reversed...

I agree, make it as written first, then change to suit your tastes. If your Dad remembers it made with catsup, tomato paste with seasonings is not going to taste the same. You may think it better or worse, but if you're making it for him, make it the way it was when he had it.

We don't seem to have a noodle shortage here, the shelves are full of them. If you can't get them, I'd probably go with some type of penne or rotini, elbow macaroni is too much like "goulash", LOL.

Annie

First of all tomato paste and red wine is not a substitute for catchup...don't do that!

Secondly why not make some noodle?? Flour salt and a couple of eggs....mix...roll out and cut into inch wide pieces....Ill bet that would really make your dad happy!!

If they (noodles) were not available, that is what I would do, in this case. That said, I was not very good at noodles. They were way too thick. He probably also never had wine in anything, it was not common long ago. lf he did, add it, if he didn’t, leave it out. (Although, I think it adds a certain something.) My noodles were more like dumplings for chicken & dumplings, which are like thin biscuits cooked in broth instead of baked.

To expand on what Linda said, here's my great aunt's way of making noodles. Lots of people make them fairly similarly, but the is the authentic, Jewish version from nearish to Hungary:

Dump a cup-ish of plain flour in the middle of your board so it makes a mound. Use the side of the cup (or whatever tool you prefer) to make a crater in the center, so it looks like a volcano. Leave some flour in the bottom of the crater. Crack an egg into the crater. Use a dinner fork to topple the top edges of the volcano into the crater, and start folding it into the egg (pierce the yolk). Bring the ousides of the mound into the middle with your fork, and fold in. Keep bringing more flour into the middle until it's all combined. Knead slightly to make sure it's all well distributed. If it feels tight, let it rest a little. If it's still too tight add a tiny bit of water. If it's sticky, add a pinch of flour. Roll out thin. Sprinkle with a litte flour and roll up loosely. Slice into pinwheels (use a sharp knife, and pinch the sides loosely next to where you'll cut so the roll won't flatten and seal up). Toss the strips with another pinch of flour, so they open up. (You can cut them crossways if you want them shorter, or just slice from rolled flat using a straight edge.) Let dry slightly on parchment, or put in a warm, ventilated place to dry completely if you want to hold them a couple of days.

I learned how to make home made egg noodles from my grandmother/bubbe. And while I might do it some day, not going to happen in the immediate future. While they are good, not worth the trouble at this point. Maybe someday, to pair with home made chicken soup . . . or with a little cottage cheese and cinnamon sugar. Not going to go to the trouble to make home made noodles and then slather them with tomato sauce so the flavor gets lost . . .

Honestly I have no idea whether my Dad ever had this dish, I doubt it. But I can't imagine anything he might not like about it. To me the recipe sounds like a hybrid between the hodge podge of goulash and a more straightforward meatballs with tomato sauce, a "worst of both worlds" kind of thing. That's why I don't mind tweaking it a bit. It's not some beloved recipe. The person was beloved, not the recipe, and her beloved dishes were her baked sweets like cookies, pies and strudels. Who knows, she may have tweaked the dish every time she made it, meatballs in tomato sauce is just the kind of recipe that you can tweak and tweak some more.

Not sure why our local Meijers has had an egg noodle vacancy for so long. Only the egg noodles. I am not about to drive around looking at other stores to find them either. So not necessarily a statewide shortage, just at the store we routinely shop at. There are three groceries in my town, Aldis and Meijers and Walmart. Not going to Walmart, it's unpleasant there. Don't usually go to Aldis, the selection is limited so if I go there I still have to usually make a trip to Meijers to get all of what I need. But maybe I will peruse there for noodles one of these days. Life without egg noodles is bearable . . . at least for a while . . . :)

The point about a post asking for suggestions to tweak a recipe is because you are not planning on following it to the T. If you were, there would be no point in discussion and no CF post . . .

Actually, I recommend the brand, ”Cooked Perfect Homestyle Natural”. They are frozen and dairy free. I have used them for years. They are not over spiced. My grandson cannot have any dairy. Try them before cooking.

ETA: Especially since you are vegeterian........

I guess I am confused about what you think you need to change. Why don’t you post your revised recipe. You don’t seem to have a problem with the noodles, so what is the problem?

Sorry. They're so easy to make, I forgot your working with flour aversion. :)

I've been thinking about the beans and the clouds parted. For the age of the recipe you implied, my guess is that they're an extender. Meat was/is expensive. Beans used to, at least, be cheap. And filling. And maybe she just liked them.

You are not going to use this recipe, but you want us to "update" it? You don't want to use the meat, the ketchup, the beans, or the noodles ... and your dad is the picky eater? OMG

Since he never has had this recipe, and kidney beans are not a common ingredient in meatball dishes and you know he might complain about them, I'd just leave them out. He'll never know. Why waste a can of beans? Pick his favorite pasta, noodle whatever and serve it with that - macaroni or spaghetti or egg noodles. I would not go to too much trouble for a picky, unappreciative eater who's likely to complain, regardless.
If you feel you must honor the source of the recipe by making it verbatim, could you call a child or other relative of hers and ask if they remember it and how she served it?

I think Aldi' s noodle selection is def. worth checking out. They usually have a number of traditional, German/European imported products.

They may even have some prepared foods your dad might enjoy - like meatballs.

The reason for needing some mild tweaking is most of those old 60s and 70s recipes call for a can of creamed soup for the sauce. No one in my life can eat that stuff anymore due to it being so high in fat and particularly salt, and occasionally sugar. Hence the need for mild tweaking to make more healthy.

Ketchup is notoriously high in salt, but I guess if I didn't use any other type of salt, it might be OK. The neon red color of ketchup scares me. I had wanted to make some of my own to can, with home grown tomatoes last year but just didn't get to it. The long cooking time it requires was an impediment since I had so much stuff to process, plus we just don't eat a lot of ketchup. But we might if it was a home-made cool spicy condiment! My dad loves the sweet and sour flavor profile but hubs does not . . . I used to have some low-salt ketchup but I used it all up and it hasn't been in the grocery store lately . . .

Now, after 12 years together and dozens and dozens of hamburger meals, hubs informs me that he doesn't like hamburger, due to "not trusting it" because once maybe 20 years ago he got sick after eating hamburger. Not sure why this is his thing all of a sudden, as I have watched him eat it often, and even order hamburgers at restaurants . . . He is catching ornery old man disease from my Dad I think. This is what I usually get from trying to please my Dad. And then later complaints that I don't do much for him . . . but he's 90!!

Most of the recipes for Hungarian style meatballs and goulash that I see have a very bland tomato sauce, with good paprika being one of the flavor components, and occasionally sugar and vinegar, which is what I think the ketchup was for. In some ways, using an unusual set of spices in a beef and tomato sauce reminds me a bit of Cincinnati chili, which does call for kidney beans and is usually served over noodles. I love that but perhaps a little too "out there" for Dad. When I make it, I use a Sara Moulton recipe and use fake meat crumbles in place of hamburger, and I love the kidney bean part. Dad loves Wendy's chili, which has kidney beans, so he might like this. Who knows, picking at food is his hobby in his old age. He was like that as a little kid, gave my poor grandmother fits, she was always afraid she was going to get a call from social services for underfeeding him, which if you knew my grandmother and the way she prided herself in keeping her family well fed, was absurd.

I'll probably make without kidney beans as a test run, and see if he even likes it at all . . . Now where did I put that little bag of real Hungarian paprika . . .

Thanks for the meatball recommendation Sherry! That was another idea I had, but Dad claimed he bought some store bought meatballs and they were "terrible." (I had suggested he get some store bought meatballs to mix it up a bit with his food choices.) Ironically, he'll eat some awful TV dinner without flinching, or open a can of Chef Boyardi spaghetti . . . I imagine some brands of prepared meatballs are better than others. I have not delved much into the frozen foods aisle, I can't really afford to spend the money on pre-packaged foods, but I'm always trying to get my Dad to do it, he can afford it. They have a great variety of prepared stuff!!

I wouldn't mind a trip to Aldi's, their baked good and breads are nice too. I am just trying to cut back on all the carbs to lose weight, sigh. Most of the stuff I love at Aldi's are things I should not eat, at least on a regular basis . . . they have some nice stuff in the frozen foods aisle too!

P.S. if you wanted to send me some of your home made ketchup Annie . . . I've had it before, delicious!! Not even in the same class as Heinz . . .

FWIW, it is possible to buy low salt ketchup, and I buy organic ketchup from Aldi that's very tasty.

And I checked our local Aldi on Instacart for noodles and they have their own brand of egg noodles.

I've often wondered if I should start buying low salt condiments online and having them delivered . . . just such a big environmental footprint. Reading salt content labels is a fine art. Some times the "organic, low sugar" stuff ends up being ironically the highest in salt . . . I found out the organic mayo had the highest salt of all the ones offered. I was so happy that they had Heinz low salt ketchup because my Dad eats a lot of ketchup. Now they don't have it anymore. Not sure if they just don't have it when I go to the store . . . these unusual products have sketchy availability in my local Meijers. Another item was toilet paper for sensitive skin, which I have to use. It was out for over a year, and I thought that the paper companies had actually stopped making it, but now it's back. Was probably just a manufacturing adjustment. Meanwhile I ordered a bunch of bamboo stuff, which is not necessarily hypoallergenic . . . And they were also out of the vegetarian version of "Better Than Bouillon" for over a year, but now it too is back. Who knows. I try to go with the flow on some of this stuff, first world problems and all . . .

Perhaps the subject of a future post, best sources of low salt foods. I also considered trying to find a regular source of low salt cream of chicken or mushroom soup, for Dad. If I'm the one cooking, I just try to make a nice low salt creamy sauce, either velouté or béchamel or a combo. One can make a flour thickened sauce with olive oil for the fat . . . But one of Dad's things is to dump cream of something soup over meat and cook it in a slow cooker for dinner, along with some Stovetop Stuffing, although I now can get the low salt version of that again. It too was gone for a long while from our local store. Dad's favorite foods are very salty, but that's what he likes, salt, fat, sugar, meat and starch. He was wanting to get corned beef too, to mix it up . . . He goes to Arbys and gets a pastrami sandwich and a milkshake and then complains he doesn't feel well with an upset stomach . . . sigh.

Edited to add that I know there are some folks who make frequent trips to the grocery store and so if it isn't on the shelves one day, they go back again and again looking for it. I dislike grocery shopping so I'm just not one of those people, and I can't afford delivery. So I often "tweak" a recipe if I can't get the ideal ingredient. I'm used to that too from tweaking recipes to make them vegetarian or lower fat or sugar.

do you have a target anywhere close? If you can find enough things to make a $35 order, shipping is free. If you get their app, you can do curbside. They have lots of different ketchups available...and you can check the labels of everything on their website Low sodium, low sugar organic ketchup
They have all the low sodium cream soups but will not ship them, but you can get curbside if your store carries them.

Getting back to the original request for meatballs, if my primary goal were to please a picky older person i‘d choose a very traditional meatball recipe in tomato sauce, swedish-style beef broth and cream sauce, or the very old fashioned grape jelly based sauce.

Choose the sauce according to your dad‘s preferences then freeze excess in a couple of smaller containers for future meals and you the vegetarian would just eat the same veggies and starch that accompany his meatballs. meatballs can be cooked to well-done so there should be no doubt about food safety plus they are more fun to eat than ’loose meat’:)

The only veg you need to include in the dish are finely minced onion and maybe garlic that should disappear inside the formed meatballs. you can grate the onion to make it easier to hide. if the recipe calls for condensed soup choose another recipe.

No suggestions from me, really, although if I made it, would have to leave the beans out. If this is not a recipe he used to eat, I would still omit it. I thought since you mom submitted the recipe, it was one he ate and . Could you ask his preference?

On an aside, funny how you read things sometimes and translate it to something else. I read pork and beans instead of kidney, and was really going "yuk". Despite reading on that they were rinsed. My brain is going down fast

Well, I made the recipe as written. I have no idea why my Mom included it in the community cookbook, as it wasn't very good. But I do see my Dad as liking it, because the sauce was "sweet and sour" and fatty due to the sour cream. Hubs did not like it at all as he does not like ketchup, and the ketchup flavor predominated the sauce. He said the meatballs were good, and I agreed, but now that I've made them, I still don't get the appeal of meatballs as opposed to just browning the meat and including it in the sauce. You spend all that time seasoning the meat, shaping it, rolling it in bread crumbs, turning them while frying them, and then you end up having to cut them up to eat them . . . I think I'll just look around for a good brand of frozen meatball for Dad in the future, although I wouldn't be opposed to making the home made meatballs again and freezing them.

As for the dish, I served it with rotini pasta which worked well, it was something I had on hand in the right serving size. I used onion powder in a small amount instead of the onion, to make it less noticeable. That worked well. The dish reminded me of "cowboy beans" which are made with browned hamburger. It gave me indigestion for the rest of the evening due to the lingering acid from the ketchup, and then terrible gas. If I make something similar again, I will not add the ketchup or beans, and just season the tomato sauce to taste with more of the meatball spices. Below is a photo of the dish. I didn't have kidney beans so I had to use a can of red beans, which are mild and inoffensive as far as adding a taste to the dish. I also added half a grated carrot to the sauce since my home canned tomato sauce was rather tart due to the recipe calling for added lemon juice to insure the right level of acidity. 1/2 cup of sour cream was way overkill. I had to use some whole-milk home-made yogurt since I was almost out of sour cream, but I tasted it and it wasn't any more "sour" than the sour cream and just as thick.

Most of those old recipes from the early 60s in this community cookbook call for a can of cream of something soup, and ketchup is one of the most common seasonings. And then add some sour cream just for fun. Having grown up with all the families, the cookbooks from the late 70's and early 80's then featured diet recipes as all these women went to Weight Watchers to lose the weight they gained from cooking to please their kids and husbands, and then later "heart friendly" and "diabetes friendly" fiber rich recipes as they graduated into older age, diverticulitis and bypass surgery . . .

My husband was a picky eater, but not necessarily for good food. He loved sloppy Joe's. His recipe was cooked hamburger meat, add plenty of ketchup and cook til very dry. At least it was quick and easy. No idea why I felt the need to add this, picky eaters and ketchup I guess, LOL!

Yup Nancy, that's my Dad. He's picky but the tastes of the food he does like is truly astonishing. He buys an industrial size bottle of "Sweet and Sour Sauce" and puts it on everything. That's his ketchup. Yesterday I brought over some baked breaded chicken, roasted butternut squash and rice pilaf. He mixed it all together, put a big gob of sweet and sour sauce on it and said it was delicious. And yes, he loves sloppy joes. But then complains about the repetition and boring nature of his diet.

Another thing he eats over and over again is a hamburger and some baked beans. Well, that dish tasted like mixing meatballs and baked beans, so there ya go, pretty close . . .

Sounds familiar. My husband would eat the same thing over and over, them complain it did not taste good. Did love hamburger and baked beans, but sweet and sour sauce would be out of his comfort zone.

Well, just as expected, my Dad LOVED the meatball dish. He had some last night for dinner and raved about it. "It was SWEET! What did you put in it?!" It did have all his favorite foods--meat, starch, sugar and fat, plus vinegar for his beloved "sweet and sour" flavor, and sour cream to smooth out all the rough edges with a coat of creamy dairy opioids. If I make it again I will just do it like goulash by sauteeing the hamburger, or use store bought meatballs, and dial down the ketchup and sour cream a bit, the recipe as written is way overkill.

he loved what you made

Pink, great! I do recommed the brand and variety I posted above. They are so much quicker than from scratch and they really do taste good. (I have had some truely terrible frozen meatballs.) I don't remember a lot of the chemicals I object to, but I haven't bought them lately.

I use them also, to make the Southern appetizer, that is Heintz Chile sauce, grape jelly, and meatballs.

Yup, Mom left behind a recipe for that too, albeit I think with cocktail wieners. I have not made either version, but I'm sure Dad would love them. I've been trying for quite a while to think of an occasion to make a batch. My husband and I would not want to eat them, or at least very many of them, for a whole bunch of reasons already mentioned, but they might be fun to serve at a party . . . ah those bygone days of home parties . . . something else retro from the 60s that I miss . . .

I am glad you dad loved the dish, makes you feel it is worthwhile. Always good to have a recipe you know he will go for.