My Weekend

The end of September, first of October is a busy time for my family.  My uncle's birthday is September 29 and my mom's birthday is September 30.  Plus my husband and I celebrate our anniversary on October 2 and this year was our 5th. 

My mom and I, along with my two boys celebrated her birthday by going to eat at the Cheesecake Factory.  Then my husband and I celebrated our anniversary by having burgers and fries at 5 Guys.  We then went to see Zombietown on opening night; a real treat because he hates going to movies when they first open, where as I LOVE to.  After seeing a great zombie flick, one of our favorite things, we went and had dessert at the Melting Pot.  Our local Melting Pot has a reverse happy hour from 10 to close on Friday and Saturday nights when they offer 1/2 price fondue.  So we had a fantastic dessert of chocolate "Flaming Turtle" fondue for $8 (with Dane's beer it was $10).  The Melting Pot is pretty much as I thought it would be.  We concluded that we won't do it on a regular basis (mainly because of the parking), but we will definately do it again.

Then on Sunday, we had our customary family dinner.  My mom always plans way too much food and we proceed to kill ourselves cooking it.  We had roast turkey, crockpot bbq brisket, mashed potatoes, dressing (that my mother-in-law made), roasted butternut squash, steamed carrots, green beans, corn and White House Biscuits.  Not to meantion a homemade German Chocolate Cake and a homemade Waldof Astoria Cake.  My grandmother always makes White House Biscuits and she just wings it.  This time my mom made them, followed the recipe, and I think they turned out better than normal.  I plan to post a recipe that we made this weekend, I am just having a hard time deciding which one.

Hamburger Stroganoff

For my first post, I thought I would tell you about one of my tried and true recipes, Hamburger Stroganoff. I have been making this recipe since I was in high school, living with my parents and I am lucky that my husband likes it too...with some modifications. It originally came from a cookbook from the 1970s that my mother had. I have had to modify the recipe as some of the original ingredients can no longer be found. I made this for dinner last night and had yummy leftovers for lunch today.


1 pound ground beef or turkey or half and half
2 Tbsp all purpose flour
1 Tbsp instant minced onion (I substitute 3 cloves worth of minced garlic)
1 beef bouillon cube
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1 3-oz can sliced mushrooms (or you can use dried - I omit this completely)
6-oz sour cream
2 Tbsp sherry (I usually omit this as my husband doesn't like the taste)

Season meat with seasoned salt and pepper then brown meat. Stir in flour, onion/garlic, bouillon cube, garlic salt and paprika. Add 1 cup of water and the mushrooms with liquid (since I do not use the mushrooms, I just add about 3 oz extra water). Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir sherry into sour cream if using. Add sour cream and stir well to combine it with the mixture in the pan. Heat through approximately 5 more minutes.

I always serve this with whole wheat noodles. I cook them then throw them into the pan with the Hamburger Stroganoff once everything is done. To make this a full meal, I serve it with green beans.

Make sure that you get the bouillon cube melted and stirred in well. Last night, after making this recipe for 15 years, I bit into the undissolved bouillon cube for the first time.

My family always enjoys this meal. I hope your family will too.