One day last week I was really in the mood to cook something hearty for the family. It was dark and rainy and as I drove home I had the perfect idea: beef stroganoff. I am not an advance meal planner. I do keep some basics in the fridge such as sour cream and I do buy mushrooms just about every week and I did purposefully buy a bag of large egg noodles. I knew I had some steak in the freezer.
Truth be told I do enjoy making dinner most of the time. And I had my youngest son to help since these days the two middle schoolers are in their rooms at 6:00 with hours of homework. So I got busy defrosting and slicing the beef. I told Hubs I felt like Julie Powell did—cooking after working and getting excited about preparing her Beef Bourguignon (minus any maggots in my kitchen. Sorry, I had to share. The movie left out a lot of the book).
Although I am not a frequent wine drinker occasionally I do have a glass of wine when I cook. A 
few weeks back my husband brought home a 4-pack of mini wine bottles declaring this way I won’t waste any (if you ever come over and bring wine, bring your favorite as I will probably only have one glass and you can finish the rest and I won’t even notice).
My youngest son will help me out in the kitchen if I let him actively participate in tasks with elements of danger and drama so he was all over unscrewing a little bottle of Chardonnay, pouring it into a wine glass, pretending to be a waiter and using a French accent. I then let him cut up mushrooms, open a soup can, and add a beef bouillon cube to hot water. He continued to use an accent and pretend we were on a cooking show. I was enjoying the moment immensely.
The recipe indicates that when the cubes of meat are added to the pan, a couple tablespoons of flour should be added and then later, more flour is to be added to the cream sauce. I keep my flour in a cupboard and I didn’t see the paper bag of flour, but I did see a large ziplock plastic bag. I figured that was the flour in a new container -- from when he had the pantry moth incident when my husband and I threw out a lot of food items but a couple of items got inspected and transferred to other containers.
The beef stroganoff looked beautiful--a big batch chock full of beef pieces, mushrooms and creamy sauce with lots of sour cream. About half way though my husband asked if I added “anything sweet to the dish ……like powdered sugar???” I said, “Well I sprinkled on flour to thick--…..” “Wait--does anyone recall seeing that bag of flour?" Turns out the bag of flour had gone into the refrigerator due to the pantry moth incident and the ziplock bag of white "flour" was actually powdered sugar.
So we had very sweet beef stroganoff. And lots of "leftovers". In hindsight I did wonder why the “flour” wasn’t blending in like it should in the pan. So I blame it on the wine. Or it was the moths’ fault. Or a lesson to label plastic baggies containing powdered sugar.
9 comments:
Oh man!
I was getting so excited about your meal and I became so H U N G R Y listening to you describe it..
UNTIL
the powder sugar came into play.
Um, grossy! I am impressed you still ate it! I can totally see that happening at my house too..!
funny post :)
Well, a stew can handle a little bit of sugar but it works better with carrots. Sad fate for a nice steak, though.
I've had similar things happen in my 43 adult years, and think that it's called 'headupyourbuttitis". What I would have done, and have done, in this case,after taste testing it, would have been to put the whole thing into a colander, rinse the sauce off with hot water, and start over in a pan with making a new sauce. Or just reheat/reseason the rinsed mixture (meat/mushrooms/noodles/etc.).
That sounded like so much fun with your son! Those are such precious moments!
As it was cooking I tasted a piece of it and it was fine to me. I had no idea until halfway through eating when my husband said something. Then the kids agreed with him. If I had known before it was served I would have ranted and told everyone to make a bowl of cereal if they wanted. And rinsing it all off is a great idea.
What's strange is a popular Moroccan dish is chicken bistilla in which powdered sugar is sprinkled on the pastry layers. I think it's a great way to combine dinner and dessert especially for my guys who have to have something sweet after dinner!
Maybe it's my Italian upbringing, but there is something perfect about having a glass of wine while you cook...it makes it feel like your own little private party! :) It sounded so familiar reading this post.
Oh dear, I'm imagining that taste, and it is not delightful. What a waste of good 'shrooms!
AAAAHHHH! Hysterical. You know, Julia Child was known to drink quite a bit of her sherry while she was cooking. I wouldn't be surprised if she made a similar mistake at some point in her life too! Sounds like your husband was a GREAT sport.
Oh dear, oh dear.
This story reminds me of a trip I took to a local pizza parlor with a very unassuming baby lawyer. The place was extremely dark and he proceeded to pour sugar (thinking it was parmesan) all over his pizza. And then he was all "no, no it's fine" and tried to eat it! At that point I had to intervene.
But say, said selfish me, can I have that Stroganoff version sans the sugar? The Beef Madarin is already on my fridge, begging to be tried.
I'm trying to imagine what that would taste like, too. Because I really enjoy me some beef stroganoff. Like sloppy joes stroganoff?
The recipe my mom always used had like 2 tbsp of tomatoe paste and it's like the kicker for me. Gotta have that paste.
It still sounds like such a sweet moment with your fancy French speaking cooking assistant. Good stuff.
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