Every cook has a bad night.....

And tonight was one of mine. Ugh

It started out well enough, making a recipe I know well for dinner, my version of Beef Stroganoff. I've made it a zillion times. One thing I love is that it starts off with browning the whole steak, which means on nights where I have totally zoned out, I can even pull a frozen top round steak out of the freezer and start with that.

Step one... brown meat.

Mmmm. Browned meat. Browned meat GOOD. It's just a couple minutes on each side to get some color.

And while that is getting some color, chop some onions and mushrooms.

When the steak is browned, dump the onions & mushrooms in the pan, add some salt, and deglaze the pan.

If you want, you can add a little chicken or beef stock. And if you're smart and unlike me, you'll remember to add a bit of oil to everything.

Meanwhile... slice beef against the grain. Mmm. Beefy. And nice and rare.

When the onions are done, sprinkle on some flour. Then add beef stock, Worcestershire sauce, I add a couple drops (and I mean drops, the hubby can detect it if I add too much) of balsamic, salt and pepper to taste, and let it thicken.

Once that is thick, kill the heat, then add the beef and sour cream and stir to warm it all through.

"Hey, what the hell? How did that become a different pan?"

DAMN. You caught me.

I forgot to add the oil when I added the mushrooms and onions, and I walked away for just a little too long to do something else. By the time the nose went "hey... what's burning?" it was a hopeless cause. Big, burned, onion and mushroom mess totally ruining the goodness from browning the steak in the pan. D'oh!

Not too hard to recover, though. I always have onions around, and I was lucky that I had some extra mushrooms around that I could work with. I got those chopped up quickly enough and didn't loose too much time.

I'm lucky enough that we've got a good eastern European population in these parts, and dried spaetzle noodles are on some grocery shelves. Not the shorter ones.... actual long noodles. Way good with this.

Sigh. In the kitchen, tomorrow is another day. Or wait, I don't cook on Fridays. I guess Saturday is another day.