(Not as good as my mom's) Beef Stroganoff

Each weekend I try to do my cooking for the week ahead.  I find that this sets me up for success and helps me avoid trips through drive-thru windows.  A few weeks ago I got so hungry that I found myself eating Capt'n D's.  That's not even good quality seafood.  If I'm going to spend the calories to have that kind of thing, its going to be high quality, darn it!  Recently, I had a craving for beef stroganoff.  Whatev.  I'm flexible.

I found a recipe on Epicurious.com.  You can check it out by clicking HERE.

I did a decent bit of editing to the recipe in an attempt to get the calorie count down.  The original recipe calls for whipping cream, oil, and close to an entire stick of butter.  In my attempts to slim down, I don't need to eat more then one serving of something like that...and since I wasn't planning on sharing the yield from this dish, I made some little edits.

Here are the ingredients:

There is definitely some homemade chicken noodle soup hanging out in the background there.  It's amazing and delicious.  The recipe is from one of my favorite bloggers, A Dork and His Pork.  If you want the Chicken Soup recipe, click here.  Make as written but with extra broth.l  Then add egg noodles.

Now for a close up of the ingredients:

I had to buy some beef bullion since I never use it...and have no idea how to make it either.  I was a little grossed out while shopping for it...wasn't able to really find anything that seemed to actually be made from beef...

Instead of whipping cream, I substituted whole milk from my favorite milk provider, Snowville Creamery.  It wasn't a huge amount of calorie savings, but substantial enough that I decided to use it.  I already had some brandy on hand from a pork chop recipe I made, and the whole grain mustard left over from a ham.  Then just a few spices.

Instead of using oil to brown the meat, I made up some extra beef broth and used that to keep the pan moist.  The meat just needed a quick sear on each side.  I placed a bowl on the stove to hold the meat until I was ready to add it back in.  It also collected some yummy juices that I poured in as well.  Nice extra flavor.

The pan in the back is defrosting some homemade vegetable broth for a barley soup...

Next step was to cook down the onions and mushrooms

Here they are after a little cooking:

After that, you just stir in the meat and then the milk.  And voila!

This recipe was pretty darn tasty and had depths of flavor that I wasn't used to.  After I told my mom about making this, she told me how she makes hers.  I will probably try her version next, particularly because it sounds like it will have significantly less calories and fat then my recipe.  Afterward, I will likely merge the two recipes.  :)  I wanted more gravy in mine.

Just writing this makes me want some more stroganoff.  Yummy.