Gold Medal Meals: Beef Stroganoff

OK. I admit it. I dropped the ball. An out-of-town weekend trip and the busyness of life with two kids kept me from continuing my plan of a meal from a different nation each night of the Olympics. So on this night where London extinguished its cauldron, I decided to make one more Gold Medal Meal.

One of the traditions of the Closing Ceremonies at the Olympics is the hand-off to the next host city. In this case, London passes off to Rio De Jeneiro, Brazil, for the next summer games, but the next host is Sochi, Russia, home of the XXII Olympic Winter Games. So in honor of Russia, I decided to make Beef Stronganoff (or Stronganov).

As I often do, I searched for an easy recipe for the dish, and then added a few touches of my own. In addition to getting me back to the Olympic theme, this unlike many of the other Gold Medal Meals, fits with the theme of simplicity in cooking this blog targets.

Ingredients
12-16 oz package egg noodles
1 lb lean ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic chopped
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup (low or reduced fat preferably)
1/2 cup sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
In large pot of boiling water, cook noodles according to directions.

In large skillet over medium-high heat, brown ground beef. Just before it's all done, drain the grease. Stir in the onion, and cook two more minutes. Stir in garlic and mushrooms. Cook two more minutes, or until mushrooms are tender. Stir in soup, salt and pepper, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 8-10 minutes. Stir in sour cream, simmer two more minutes. Serve over noodles.

It's not the most photogenic dish, but it's pretty tasty, even if our little guy wasn't willing to give it a chance. My wife and I talked about how it would be an easy dish to hide some veggies, like diced carrots, by adding them in with the meat and other veggies.