The offspring was gone for her every other weekend visitation this past weekend. I would love to say things have improved there but I guess something that has been awful for 14 years is never going to change. It breaks my heart. She is such an amazing child filled with compassion and beauty. She deserves so much better.
On the weekends she is gone I don't cook. In fact I spent this particular weekend eating toast and Lean Pockets...don't judge. I love Lean Pockets.
The rest of the week we haven't done much. We had frozen pizza one night. McDonald's another. Yes, I know. I broke my vow of no more fast food. But it is so convenient!
Finally, last night I cooked! Sadly, the recipe kind of sucked:(
But I vowed to blog the good, the bad, and the ugly...so here we go!
Hamburger Stroganoff
Ingredients:
~1 pound ground hamburger (you could probably use ground turkey too if you want to be all healthy about it)
~4 Tbsp. butter
~1 cup diced onion
~1 clove garlic
~2 Tbsp. flour
~1 tsp. salt
~1/4 tsp pepper
~1 can Cream of Mushroom soup (original recipe called for can of Cream of Chicken soup. I'll explain below why you shouldn't use this.)
~1 cup sour cream
~1 8oz can sliced mushrooms (optional)
~egg noodles
I cooked my egg noodles first. I have an electric stove, which I am pretty sure is from the 1800's, and it only has 1 large burner. Does anyone really use the small burners? So I always cook noodles first.
Next, sauté the onions and garlic in a pan. Once those are done add the hamburger and brown. When finished do not drain the grease! I had a huge urger to drain the grease off but you need it for the next step. Don't worry you will get the chance to suck up that nasty fat.
Next, stir in the flour, salt and pepper. Also add the mushrooms at this time if you are using them. The flour will absorb most of the grease which is why you need to wait to drain it. Let this mixture cook until it looks well blended. Now you may drain off the excess grease.
Next, add the can of soup. The original recipe I found calls for a can of Cream of Chicken. This confused me greatly. I added it just because that is what the recipe called for. Since I am not a trained cook it didn't dawn on me that this was going to be a bad move until I ate the finished product. I should have went with my gut and used Cream of Mushroom. I highly recommend that is what you use.
Let this mixture simmer for about ten minutes or so. You want the soup to thin out a bit. Your mixture should look like the picture below. I had to drain off more grease at this point too because I used cheap hamburger. In fact it is called ground burger and not ground beef. I find this amusing. Hey, when you are poor and on a severe budget you have to choose between burger and beef. What's the harm? It is all cow...just one probably contains ground up tail and other questionable parts.
Burgery, mushroomy, soupy fun
Lastly, add the sour cream. Cook long enough to heat the mixture through.
It won't look much different than the picture above but I'll add the picture anyway.
Told ya so! Looks roughly the same
Serve over egg noodles and enjoy! (Hopefully😐)
Like I said, I was not a fan of this recipe. I don't think the offspring was either but she is too sweet to actually say so. I probably won't make it again. Because I used the Cream of Chicken, as the original recipe called for, it had chunks of chicken in it. Which for a hamburger and mushroom dish that just doesn't jive well. It also had a strong Cream of Chicken soup flavor. You could barely taste the sour cream, which is what I LOVE about stroganoff.
This recipe might be doable with some modifications. Such as using the Cream of Mushroom soup. I am just not experienced enough in the kitchen to tell you what those modifications might be. I would love feedback if you've got it.
And that is (sadly) what is for dinner!
I am going to freeze the leftovers just in case the zombie apocalypse happens and we need food. Never know....
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