Easy Stroganoff

I have always loved a good stroganoff. I remember it being my meal of choice for my birthday dinner, as a child. Like I've mentioned before, I'm somewhat of a master of changing a recipe and making it my own. I found this good recipe in one of my cookbooks and after making it a couple times, I saw this commercial on TV for Hamburger Helper Stroganoff. Just like that, it hit me. Why not make my own hamburger helper with a recipe I already have? It was the perfect candidate recipe to try it on. After a few adjustments on quantities I got a super easy, super tasty homemade hamburger helper stroganoff.

Ingredients:

2 lbs. ground beef
1/2 cup onion, chopped (approx. 1/2 onion)
2 garlic cloves, minced
16 oz. sour cream
4 tbsp. flour
4 tsp. beef bouillon granules
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 cup water
1 box cork screw noodles

In a bowl, combine the sour cream, flour and bouillon granules. Add the black pepper and water and whisk until smooth, set aside. In a large skillet brown the ground beef with the onions and garlic. Drain off fat and return to the skillet. Add the sour cream mixture and continue to cook over medium low heat until the sauce has become thick and bubbly, about 15-20 minutes. In the meantime, cook your noodles according to the instructions on the box. Place noodles on a plate and the stroganoff on top and it is DELICIOUS! You can always add some salt if you think it needs it.

That's it! How easy is that? I'm all about easy tastiness. A heads up, I tend to always end up with more meat than noodles. So you may have to cook more noodles than just that one box. I wanted to be sure to include this disclaimer in there.

Sour cream, flour, and bouillon granules. Mix well!

 

Whisk in the water and black pepper.

Ground beef, onions, and garlic.

Add sour cream mixture.

Cook it down

My mom always said don't judge by the way it looks. You have to taste it first, then you'll see how good this really is.

BBQ Taquitos

I got the base for this recipe from another blog called Chef in Training. There's a really good recipe for Baked BBQ Beef Taquitos I found on Pinterest. When I first made them, my husband fell in love with them. But I just couldn't help myself from experimenting with the recipe a little and try to change it some. When I first mentioned this to my husband he did not like the idea. He knows how I like to substitute ingredients and change things around and make them "a la My" and this one was just fine the way it was...or so he thought. :)

I had this urge to add white rice to the recipe and make the taquitos out of corn tortillas instead of flour. Then I realized that these tended to suck the moisture more so I upped my BBQ sauce amount and it was perfection. My husband said he liked the flour tortillas better, so that's what I went back to, but I thought it was delicious with the corn tortillas as well. I can honestly say that I have perfected the recipe to our taste and I make them a lot! It's a constant visitor in our meal rotation.

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Uncooked White Rice
1 lb. Ground Beef
3 Tbsp. Cream Cheese (I've also used sour cream when I was out of cream cheese and it was ok)
1 tsp. Ranch Dressing Mix (those that come in the packets)
1/2 tsp. Onion Powder
1/2 tsp. Garlic Salt
Scant tsp. Salt (optional) *scant- slightly less
1 1/4 Cup BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Ray's is the best!)
1 Cup Shredded Colby-Monterey Jack Cheese Note: I've also used cheddar because it's all I had and it was good too.
15 Small Tortillas (Flour or corn, if using corn I recommend adding another 1/4 cup BBQ sauce)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cook the rice in 1 Cup of water. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer until the water is gone. Stir occasionally. While that is cooking, brown the ground beef in a medium skillet until completely done. Drain extra fat and place the beef in a medium bowl. Mix in cream cheese right away, it helps when the beef is hot to melt it together. Add the rice, ranch dressing mix, onion powder, garlic salt, and salt (if desired), BBQ sauce and cheese. Mix well together until it is thoroughly blended. Take a tortilla and fill it with a spoon full of meat mixture. Do not over fill or you will have a hard time rolling it together. Place on a baking sheet and repeat until you are out of meat. Sometimes you will need more or less tortillas, depending on how much you filled each one. Once all the taquitos are lined up, spray them with cooking spray. Bake for 15 minutes or until they are golden brown on the edges.
They will be piping hot, so be careful when you take a bite. Store any extras in an air tight container and refrigerate. I have been meaning to make a huge batch of these and freeze them, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I will let you know if they turn out ok after freezing.

Note: If you have any left overs, the best way to warm them up is in a George Forman Grill. It makes them crispy and super delicious. Plus it only takes about 1 minute to warm up all the way through.

Looks a little weird, but it's delicious. Trust me!

Just a spoon full or slightly more, not too much though.

Line em' up, and spray em' down.

Mmm mmm good!

Core an Apple

This week's post is actually not a recipe, but still has to do with food. I came up with this nifty trick when K was younger and started to really enjoy eating apples. I don't know about you but I absolutely hated to core an apple. And sure, you can use those tools that are supposed to core and slice the apple at the same time, but each apple is made slightly different and you never get a straight cut. There's nothing I hate more than eating an apple slice and biting right into some of the left over core that didn't get cut. It might be just me though, I'm kind of funny about texture sometimes and if I know it's not supposed to be there, it ruins whatever I'm eating.

I remember as a child watching my mom core an apple with nothing but a knife. I thought she was so talented. I could never cut out the center as well and as pretty as she could with my knife. Then I would end up with a hacked up center on my apple and it just wasn't the same. So, one day it just occurred to me. Kind of like those V8 commercials where they get hit on the forehead. How did I not think of this before!! All I needed all those years was a melon baller. Now, follow me on this... you still need the knife to get the upper and lower part out, but for the center you just line up the melon baller and scoop it out! It was one of those rare genius moments I had and I've been sharing with everyone. When I showed my mom and sister they were both so impressed and their immediate comment was "Did you find this on Pinterest?!" NO! That was all me, baby! So here's what you do:

Get your apple, knife, and melon baller.

Slice your apple in half, then scoop out the middle!

Then with your knife cut in a triangle the upper and lower part of the core.

And voila! A perfectly cored apple. K likes to eat them whole like this so this is where I end my cutting, but they slice up very nice too with this coring technique.