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I'm taking a leaf out of Sara Pierce's blog and putting in a recipe. Theres no way I'll be able to post them as frequently as she does since my culinary creativity comes in fits and bursts dictated by how tired I am from my nutsy work schedule, but this particular recipe is one of my absolute favorites.

I have another confession to make, it isn't exactly a recipe, I don't have measurements for any of it, it's kind of just a "add to taste" kinda thing. SO here goes, my version of Beef Stroganoff.

Ingredients:
1 Steak (You don't want a lot of fat marbling in the meat, cheap is fine since you aren't eating it like a usual steak)
1 onion
2-4 cloves garlic
2 ish qts heavy cream
A lot of sour cream
Some milk
A little bit of butter
Worcestershire sauce to taste
A cereal bowl of flour
Assorted spices (rosemary, thyme, savory, ground black pepper)
Extra Virgen Olive Oil
Egg Noodles

 Chop your onions and garlic cloves. I usually slice the onion in medium width long strips, but Brian doesn't like "big pieces" in his food, so I coursely chopped the onions a little smaller to see if I could get him to eat a few more veggies. I put the garlic in the same bowl, it's all ending up in one pan.

 Rinse your steak, then wrap in seran wrap. Use a meat tenderizer if you have one, or resort to a can of your favorite Campbell's soup. Spaghetti sauce jars also work well. Commence in pounding the snot out of your steak. The steak will be sliced  into thin strips later so this step helps keep your meat from turning into tough shoe leather. After pounding (on both sides) remove seran wrap and cut meat into thin strips.

After slicing the meat it's time to prep it for the frying pan

Mix equal parts of your spices in a bowl. Put flour in another bowl and then have a plate ready for your floured meat. Take a strip and place it in the spice bowl and then use your fingers to rub in the spices. Too much spice can make gritty meat so don't layer it on too thick. Put the spiced meat in the flour bowl and thoroughly cover the meat in flour. Put your finished floured meat on the plate to get ready for frying. Once you have a substantial amount of floured meat ready, put some EVO in your pan and place burner on medium-high.

Place floured strips of meat in hot oil in pan, flipping until both sides are browned. If you do a few slices at a time you can flip them faster and keep your meat more tender. Too many pieces and your steak will be very cooked through. I like my steaks medium rare, so I try to flip the pieces pretty fast. Continue to add oil as needed as you fry the meat strips. Let the pan cool a little and wipe it down when the meat is all finished.

Sautee Onions and Garlic

When onions are nice and golden, add meat back to pan and we start the sauce process. YUM! I think the sauce is the best part. While you make the sauce, go ahead and throw on water to boil for the noodles.


SAUCE! Pour some milk into your sauce pan with your

 onions and meat, keep the burner on medium-low. Add a LOT of sour cream. A medium sized container is a good start. Add a little less than 2 qts heavy whipping cream. Stir very frequently to get everything to blend smoothly together. Maybe add a tablespoon or so of butter if you feel so inclined. Continue to stir, bring the burner up to medium. Add dashes of worcestershire sauce to taste, I'm guessing I put at least 1/8th cup in my sauce, hard to tell since I don't ever measure. Stir, stir, stir, graudally bringing up the heat. Trick is you want the sauce to warm through thoroughly and thicken, but you don't want the dairy products to break down. Medium high is as hot as I'll bring the sauce and I'll usually bring the heat back down fairly quickly once the sauce bubbles to avoid breaking up the sauce. TIPS: Less milk, more cream, especially if you use 1%milk or less, the fat is the key to this rich sauce. Too much milk and it'll take forever to thicken. Use plenty of sour cream. Stir in the worcestershire thoroughly and taste after each addition so you don't put in too much. Use pepper to season if you want.

VOILA! Finished sauce.

Now just let sauce cool and thicken for a minute or two, pour over cooked egg noodles and your beef stroganoff is complete! I forgot to take a "finished product" picture of our bowls of noodles and sauce, it was just too yummy smelling and I was too hungry! I took my bowl straight to the couch and tucked in. This is one meal on which I overstuff myself every time I make it. My stomach hurt for the rest of the night, but it was so good!

This is the only type of Beef Stroganoff I've ever had. I've never had the "Hamburger Helper" version with ground beef which my husband apparently detested. I was pleased and he was pleasently surprised when I first made this rendition for him. Take that Hamburger Helper!

Next on the list is to make a good Borscht. :)