Beef Stroganoff

It's recipe time!!
For as long as I can remember, my mom always made beef stroganoff the same way, she bought a box of hamburger helper in stroganoff flavor and instead of using ground beef she used stew meat. That was it...so boring (sorry, mom) and kind of funny tasting in that way that only hamburger helper can manage to taste (does all HH taste the same to you too?).

So, when I started cooking, I naturally did the same thing, until I got older and realized there was other ways of cooking things and not always having to rely on boxed meals (and especially when I realized how much sodium was in those things). That bring us to todays recipe.

This is my version of stroganoff. I'm a saucy kinda gal, so theres gonna be lots of nice creamy sauce, it's really filling, and heres the fun part... You can make it with stew meat (and ground beef too, if you really want) OR CHICKEN. Yes folks, chicken too, you're excited, I can tell.....You can also use the low sodium or non-fat cream of mushroom soup (i think they are called campbells healthy choice?), as well as non-fat sour cream, if you wanna make it a bit healthier.
Ok, onward we go to Stroganoffland.

What you need:

1lb of stew meat (or ground beef or boneless skinnless chicken breast) cut into chunks
2 cups of egg noodles
1 can cream of mushroom
1 can of beef gravy (you can use beef broth as well and just thicken it with some cornstarch . If you're making this with chicken use chicken gravy/broth instead of beef)
1 cup of sliced mushrooms (not the funny kind that make you see rainbows and talking walls though...)
1 cup of all purpose flour
1table spoon of butter
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/3 cup sour cream
You're also gonna need some salt, pepper, and garlic powder but no specific amounts of any of those

Make it: 

 First thing you wanna do, is pour the olive oil and the butter in a skillet and turn it on to med-high heat. 

You also want to start boiling the water for the egg noodles.

While thats heating up, you want to place your beef chunks into a brown paper bag or a large-ish tupper wear container. 

In a small bowl, mix the flour with just enough salt, pepper, and garlic powder to season the flour (i also like to throw in some meat tenderizer...just for kicks. totally not necessary though). 

Add the flour mixture to the meat, close the bag or container up and..... 

Shake-shake-shake. 

Shake-shake-Shake. 

Shake your stew meat...

Shake your stew meat.... 

Ok, ok, i'll stop. It sounded much funnier in my head anyway. Sorry guys. 

ok, so, moving on...

Once you've shook the meat up and coated it all nicely in that flour mixture you're gonna take it out and add it to the hot oil. 

 Let the meat brown on both sides. You just want to brown the meat, not cook it through completely. 

Once the meat is browned, remove it from the pan and set it aside. 

Add the sliced mushrooms to the same pan the meat just came out of and cook the mushrooms until they are nice an tender. 

The water in the other pot should be boiling at this point so add in those noodles.

Add the gravy (or broth that you've thickened with some cornstarch) to the mushrooms.

Add 1/3 cup of water and stir it together, make sure to scrape up all those browny tastey bits at the bottom of the pan where all the flavor lives.

Then, add in the cream of mushroom & sour cream.

Mix that all together til it's all creamy (like Baileys...mmmmm, Baileys) and add in the meat.

Lower the heat to med-low and just let it hang out for a bit.

By then, your pasta should be cooked, and you can remove it and drain it.

I like to serve the meat and sauce on top of the noodles and sprinkle it with parsley (because i'm fancy y'all) and because it adds a pretty green brightness to the dish.

That's it. You're done!

 Eat. Drink. Be Merry.

 And tell me how you liked it.

CHOW! 

(get it? chow? like ciao'!...no? ok, im not funny...)