A Joy to be Cooking

Beef Stroganoff, before the egg noodles were added

I was itching to use the birthday present I got two months ago: a copy of Joy of Cooking. Furthermore, after a year of cafeteria food at a school that is (very) vegetarian friendly, I was ready for some meat. Some good meat. Flipping through my new huge cookbook, I was enticed by the word "Beef", wasn't sure what a "Stroganoff" was, and then the ingredient of 2 lbs of sirloin tips sealed the deal.

So, I'll admit, I had no idea what Beef Stroganoff was supposed to look like, or taste like. But it ended up tasting really good. Notice the italicized letters- that means I'm putting emphasis on those words. Imaging me squinting my eyes, nodding slowly, and drawing out those two words. Anyway, I enjoyed it.

Besides the sirloin tips, I also gathered a full pound of mushrooms. Being an ambitious young adult, I took it upon myself to go as wild as possible with the mushrooms, amassing a collection of around 5 of the most obscure types of mushroom I could find. 

Cooking it was a blast. In olive oil, I seared the steak briefly in small thin strips, browning the outside and leaving the inside raw. It was at this point that I realized how stressful cooking can be. It was a bad idea to assume that I could "easily cut up some vegetables" while the meat was cooking. Yeah right. When the meat is ready to turn and I'm halfway through chopping an onion, and my eyes are tearing from the onion mist, and a bead of sweat is itching my forehead because there is no air conditioning in this apartment - only then do I realize that I should have done some cutting prep work beforehand.

Well, this is dragging on longer than I intended, so I'll have to summarize everything else. The mushrooms and onion simmered in a lot of butter, and smelled great. When I simmered them with beef broth, the sirloin, the juices from the sirloin, and a cup of sour cream, everything turned out oh-so-savory. Add some chopped dill, serve over perfectly cooked egg-noodles, and you have yourself a happy guy.