gategrrl

Last night I prepared a dinner based on a recipe in The $7 a Meal Healthy Cookbook: 301 Nutritious, Delicious Recipes That the Whole Family Will Love (pg 179)

Olive Oil ---I used Olive Oil Spray from Trader Joe's. Did the trick.
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 pound ground beef -- The Guy bought ground buffalo instead
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 lb uncooked egg noodles
2 cups nonfat sour cream -- this is the really important part of the dish, as it's what makes it Stroganoffy!

Cook the 1 lb bag of egg noodles until they're finished in the boiling water. Start slightly after you start the veggies. Drain, set aside.

Heat olive oil in a pan large enough to contain all ingrediants.
Add the garlic and onion first. (I added in the chopped celery at the same time; it didn't seem to hurt the recipe)
Add in the beef and the celery. Cook until the beef is done.
Add in the sour cream, mix, cover and remove from heat (so the sour cream won't do awful things like curdle)

Spoon the meat/sour cream mixture over the egg noodles, and serve!

This was a big hit with the family, with everyone either A) trying it to begin with (Tall Boy and Mermaid) or B) going back for seconds (me and the Guy).

If you're a vegetarian, I think you could substitute a soy product, or heavy textured mushrooms instead, just make sure to chop the mushrooms up small enough so that it 'disappears' into the sour cream along with the other veggies.

Plain Greek yogurt might substitute well for the sour cream. You'll get a tarter taste that way, and you'd have to remove the pan from the heat *right away* so you don't mess up the yogurt and end up with a vegetable morass instead of Stroganoff.

This one is on my "must repeat" menu now. Maybe every two weeks or so.

Now, I realize the title of the cookbook includes "$7 Meal". That was certainly not how much it cost for our dinner. Buffalo is 1/3 more expensive than beef around here. I think the 1 lb package is $7 or 8 dollars. Sour Cream in a larger tub is at least $4. Garlic is cheap (I used bottled minced I already had), and so is celery, which I already had. A 1 pound bag of egg noodles is roughly $2 or $3. So, in all, this meal cost us about $15, give or take. But to me, that's still pretty good, considering that if we'd gone out to eat, that $15 would pay for one person! I could probably get better deals than the full price ingredients used here (ie, use cheaper ground beef), but I'm into using better quality stuff these days when I can.