déjà vu

remember several tuesday night adventures ago when my roommate, kristy, and i had the grand idea of bringing the story of Stone Soup to life? well, last night was like déjà vu back to that night. i don't know if it was the fact that it involved kristy, or beef stew meat, or maybe just the combination of both. but, here we were again in one of those moments where we had a great idea on whim, went through with it, and then remembered that ideas made on whims are not always successful.

how did we end up here again? 
well first of all, confession, we may have not put in as much beef stew meat in the stone soup as our 'recipe' called for. it was just so expensive (okay not really, but comparing it to our college budget it was) so we decided to keep out 1 pound of meat and freeze it for another time. fast-forward to a couple weeks ago when we bumped into each other at Aldi's (you would have thought we would have communicated better and planned or trips together) and had the grand idea of "hey, lets make beef stroganoff with that stew meat we have." the genius in me googled a recipe and found that we only needed to buy a package of gravy mix and egg noodles. the genius in me did not save the recipe.

fast forward again to last night when we spontaneously decided to make our stroganoff. we went to find my hand dandy recipe, searched the whole web, and could not find it anywhere. that is when the déjà vu feeling began to hit. not only could we not find the recipe, all the other recipes for beef stroganoff we found called for a whole list of ingredients we didn't have.

so, there we were, do we chance it and either it works or we are stuck eating something gross for the next week? or do we fast and save the meat for another day? we chose the former. 

déjà vu feelings can also be good feelings sometimes. i am happy to say this second whim happened to be just as successful as the first. i'm learning that ideas made on whim sometimes turn out to be small miracles. i don't know how it happened, but the few things we did have on hand turned out to make a delicious stroganoff. this whim represents a significant moment in my cooking adventures. the creating of my first truly original recipe. (my being kristy and i's) i know stroganoff is a pretty basic thing to make, but hey it starts somewhere right?

adaptions made to original recipe:
-swapped out beef stew meat for round steak, as the stew meat was a bit tough
-added mushrooms

Beef Stroganoff  
Yields: 4 Servings

Ingredients:
1 pound cubed round steak, cut into thin strips
Salt
Pepper
2 Tablespoons butter
1 small onion thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves
8 ounces mushrooms thinly sliced
1 package brown gravy mix
1 cup water
1/4 cup sour cream
Cooked egg noodles

Directions:
1. Season meat with salt and pepper to taste. Melt butter over medium heat in a large skillet and brown steak. Remove steak from pan.
2. Meanwhile, add onions, garlic, and mushrooms to the pan drippings and saute until crisp tender.
3. Add brown gravy mix to pan and combine.
4. Slowly whisk in water. Stir frequently until gravy comes to a slow boil. 
5. Add steak. Reduce heat and allow gravy to thicken stirring occasionally.
6. Add sour cream, heat through.
7. Salt and pepper to taste as needed and serve over cooked egg noodles.