Flourishes and Bling: July 2011

About once a week, I try to make meals with "what's left in the refrigerator". This can be scarry, but for the most part, it gets eaten. Today I had a big package of ground beef that needed to be used as well as some leftover sour cream, a couple different used containers of salsa, some Allouette cheese, red and orange peppers and some mushrooms. I happened to be home all day today since I spaced my chiropractic appointment out, thinking it was at 10:00, until my Chiropractor called at 9:05 wanting to know if I'd like to reschedule my 9:00 appointment. Oops.....
Being in a creative mood this morning, I decided to make a Cindi Beef Stroganoff and some kind of Chili, since I had the salsa and hamburger.
So, I started off with the Beef stroganoff. Now I must tell you that my secret ingredient is usually either Burgundy (which I did not have any of this morning), or my favorite brew, Shock Top Belgian White.
So I used the Shock Top. It gives a depth of flavor as well as making cooking more fun! ): ]

At this point, I need to explain the slanted picture....
I LOVE reading blogs, I could do it for a living if my family and busy life would allow it, but no such luck. Anyhow, I notice that I see ALOT of pictures taken at a slant, so I've been trying my luck at making my pictures more intersting by slanting them. Unfortunately, I think I got a little carried away, so bear with me on this blog post. :)
Back to my Stroganoff.
I made a 22 oz. package of small seashell noodles, cooked half of the burger, mixed it together and then started "creating". I added my leftover sour cream and Allouette cheese, diced up half of a sweet onion, about 8 (small) cloves of our home grown garlic, and about a dozen sliced shrooms, leftover diced red and orange peppers, sauted them in butter and threw them in the hamb/noodle mixture. Then I added milk and chicken broth as needed to thin it out. At this point, you just keep tasting and adding until you like it. I needed to add salt, pepper and parsley. The Shock Top can be added at any step at any time, your choice....... ): }

(Not the most appetizing pictures, but you get the point. It is actually not bad :)

Next, the "Chili", or Hamb/Bean stew, soup, I can't really name it, I'll leave that up to my family.
Again, use some Shock Top at any point in your creativity!

For this creation, I cooked the rest of the ground beef, added a 27 oz. can of kidney beans, a 15 can of pinto beans and a 14.75 oz can of cream corn. (Only because they were in my pantry).

Then I diced and sauted the rest of my onion, the (undiced) red and orange peppers that were in my crisper and more home grown garlic. OMG, did that smell good! Threw those in the hamb/bean mixture and then added the left over salsas. After looking at it and tasting, I thought it needed a can of Ranch Style Beans (26 oz.) because it seemed heavy on the burger for me. (Not a big meat eater). YUMMO!