Look No Further: Perfectly balanced, easy, delicious beef stroganoff

Delicious, easy beef stroganoff: melt butter in a frying pan and add the beef, dried minced onion, dried oregano, salt and pepper and brown the beef. Put the browned beef aside and make your cream sauce or you can do the cream sauce first; either way works. I didn't have fresh mushroom so I took 6 dehydrated shiitake mushrooms and re-hydrated them in warm water. I cooked a big batch of egg noodles and when they were done I put them in at colander in the sink; once the noodles were in the colander I cooled them down to stop the cooking by rinsing them with cold water. Once the mushrooms were ready I sliced them into smaller pieces and added them to the to the cream sauce warming the sauce a little bit on the stove. In the middle of this I made cream biscuits, which the last step in these biscuits is to dip them in melted butter. I had some melted butter left so I added that to the meat. I then stirred in the cream sauce with mushrooms on low heat and then added the noodles. The last step was 2 fold 1: add salt and pepper to taste (I also added some more minced onion and oregano at this step) and 2: I added a big spoon of sour cream it was probably 1/3 of a cup of sour cream. Stir it well and you're done! It's really delicious!

Ingredients: 

Meat:

4 tbs butter
1/4 tsp dried minced onion
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 lb ground beef
(Freshly ground) Salt and Pepper

Melt butter, add ground beef and seasonings.  Brown.  Add 2 tbs melted butter later if you made cream biscuits and had melted butter leftover. 

Cream Sauce:

2 tbs butter
2 tbs flour
1/2 tsp salt
A few grains of pepper (a quick ground pepper)
1 cup milk
1/4 cup cream

Mix flour, salt and pepper together.  Melt butter and add the flour mixture, creaming it together.  Add the milk and keep heated at about medium on the stove top, stirring constantly.  I use a whisk for this.  It will thicken in a few minutes.  Take off burner.

Cook pre-packaged egg noodles.

Cut up mushrooms (baby bella or shiitake are fine) or re-hydrate dry mushrooms (I used shiitake) and dice into 1/4 inch strips.  Add to the cream sauce, stir on low heat for 30 seconds or so.

Mix the mushroom cream sauce in with the beef.  Add cooked egg noodles and toss.  Salt and Pepper to taste and add 1/4 cup of sour cream, stir until completely mixed.  Serve while it's hot!  Great with Cream Biscuits and a simple spinach salad!

I've been thinking about food and one's sense of home as I read through Luisa's Berlin book and I must say that the ground beef, with the minced onion and oregano, cooked in butter...smells like home to me.  

This week (and it's only Tuesday!) has not been easy - my Husband's Uncle fell and is now on hospice care.  My Dad's cousin died and our cat Cleo is going to the vet today as she is just losing too much weight.  So the best thing I could do, after my Husband asked what was for dinner tonight, as he prepared to go to NYC for work, was cook this beef stroganoff for my lunch and our dinner.  And I made Marion Cunningham's cream biscuits that she got from James Beard.  These biscuits are magical, amazingly light when not kneaded and the perfect balance of salt; they are addictive and the perfect compliment to this simple creamy comforting beef stroganoff.