Hamburger Stroganoff

My favorite meal from my childhood is my mama's beef stroganoff.  We had it maybe once every other week growing up and those were my favorite evenings!  I took her recipe and started making it for myself in college and then when I lived on my own.  It was one of the first meals I cooked for Kevin when we started dating and something we eat often that he likes!  It's also my "go to" meal to take friends when babies are born!  It's an easy meal to freeze and eat later and everyone seems to love it!  It's one of the few meals that I can kind of "wing".  My style of cooking is very much to follow the recipe exactly instead of getting creative and tossing in a little of this and a little of that.  Kevin is much better with the creative cooking and his creations are always REALLY good!  I can't do that, except with mama's beef stroganoff.

The Ingredients:

*1 lb ground beef
*1/2 cup chopped onion
*3/4 teaspoon salt
*1/4 teaspoon paprika
*1 can mushrooms
*1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup (10.5 oz)
*1 cup dairy sour cream (do not use fat free)
*dash pepper
*hot buttered egg noodles (or base of choice...we use white rice...it's all I've ever had and all I ever want with my hamburger stroganoff)

Directions:
Brown the ground beef.

Add onion and cook until tender, but not brown.

Drain off excess fat and add seasoning to meat mixture.
(Be really careful to add the amounts of seasoning that the recipe calls for...I made this for friends with a new baby in February and added 3/4 tablespoon of salt instead of 3/4 teaspoon.  It was WAY too salty.  The good news is I had made another batch for us, so I was going to combine them and save the day.  The bad news is, I had done the same thing to our batch and so they were BOTH WAY too salty!  It was embarrassing!  I do add more paprika than the recipe calls for.  I have a smoked paprika that I just love and it adds an extra kick!)

Stir in soup and mushrooms.

Cook slowly, uncovered, 20 minutes, stirring frequently.  If you haven't already, now is the time to get your rice or egg noodles cooking.

Stir in sour cream and heat through- do not boil.
I always guesstimate with the sour cream too.  I know what color the end result is supposed to be, so I just add sour cream until it looks that color.  Sometimes it's a cup, sometimes a cup and a half.  It really depends on how much beef you have.  You know these days it's hard to get exactly 1 lb. of beef in a pack!

Serve over rice or hot noodles and Enjoy!!!