Beef Strogganauf, or however you spell it, personally I eat it

Well, it has been quite a while since I posted anything on my blog and a lot has changed...

• I'm gluten free now (and feeling so much better)
• Found a great church (Epikos)
• I was baptized at Horsetail Falls
• We are praying for babies (well, that hasn't changed)
• Another successful chicken, um, 'harvest' in June
• I learned to make my own laundry soap
• The garden has grown, harvested and the bounty put up for the winter
• Had my first bee sting and a bizarre allergic reaction a week later
• I made jelly for the first time (well actually I made syrup, whoops)

and well, so many other things that it would take too long to keep listing them, so I stop since I digress from my main point today which is....

Beef Stroganoff

I learned to make this by watching my Mom while I was growing up. I would sit at the kitchen counter and ramble on about this or that in the way that young girls are known to do (which is sometimes cute and sometimes annoying) while she would cut the onion and beef up and then begin to cook. At which time, I would move my self and my dictation of random and useless information and questions over to the stove to watch her brown the meat, anticipating the moment when I could officially taste test the evening's meal. When I stop and think about it, I did this almost every day of my life growing up. Hovering around the kitchen, watching my Mother do this or that, smelling, tasting, reading recipes, watching cooking shows. My passion for cooking started at a young age and has never stopped... but again, I digress.

Once that anticipated moment of the first taste arrived, I was always too excited to wait for it to cool down and would slurp the boiling hot broth into my mouth, scorching my tongue. Come to think of it, I still have this problem every time I make stroganoff. I don't think I have ever made a batch without burning my tongue. Perhaps you can learn from my mistake as I don't seem to be.

Back to Beef Stroganoff. I have made this meal for so many people and had many marriage proposals from it, a few of which might have been sincere. I would never think of sharing the recipe; somewhere deep inside I believed if I wrote it down it would lose it's magic... but I now know that it is simply too good not to share! So here it is, with notes for my gluten free friends at the bottom :)


1 Large onion chopped
5 Large cloves of garlic
2-3 pounds of beef
1/4 cup flour
olive oil
glass of red wine (optional)
3 cans of CAMPBELLS concentrated beef broth (must use CAMPBELLS or see note below)
3 cans of water
1-2 cans of mushrooms, or more :)
1 pints of sour cream
1 package wide egg noodles

-Cube meat into 1-2 inch chunks and coat in flour.
-Over medium heat in a large pot, add a bit of oil and cook onions for about 5 minutes, add garlic and continue cooking until onions are soft and transparent, remove from pot.
-Add a bit more oil to the pan and turn up to med-high. Place the meat in the pan, don't crowd, and brown on all sides. You don't have to cook it all the way through, you are just getting it kind of crusty and getting bits stuck to the bottom of the pan which add a ton of flavor.
-When done browning meat, pour in the wine or one can of beef broth, and deglaze (scrape up the bits) the bottom of the pan.
-Add in all the meat, onions and mushrooms, then pour in the remaining beef broth and water. Do it in this order or everything will splash at you when you dump it into a pot of liquid :)
-Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer over med-low for several hours to reduce down by a little less than half.
-Set the sour cream out to warm up a bit, about 30-45 minutes before dinner time, and start the pasta water.
-When ready to serve, put sour cream in a large bowl, and laddle in a bit of the broth from the hot pot. Mix till combined and then stir into the pot. Bring the mixture back up in temperature if necessary, but not over high heat and don't boil it, it has dairy now and that does some funky things. Still tastes great, just changes the appearance.
-Serve over noodles and prepare yourself for a food coma.

Gluten Free Notes: Pacific Beef Broth is close to being as good as Campbells, but it isn't concentrated. I use two boxes and no water. Cook it down by about half. Of course leave out the flour. To thicken, before adding the sour cream, stir in a goodly size amount of cornstarch slurry. and of course, serve over gluten free pasta, the spirals and the tube shapes catch the sauce the best :)