Salado Stroganoff

I was reading a blog post this morning from Tried and True Cooking With Heidi, and she was talking about how some recipes are yummy, but not particularly "photogenic".

This, my friends, is one of those recipes.

It's one of our FAVORITE things to eat around here, but isn't exactly what you would call "culinary eye candy".

But I promise you.............it's YUM.

I'm calling it "Salado Stroganoff" because it's what my mom used to make at least once a week and I never saw her use a recipe.

When my sister and I go home to Salado, this us usually what we request mom make for us:-)

Here are the ingredients:
****This is for a double amount, the original recipe is half of everything I've listed***

2 pounds hamburger
10 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 Large Family sized can Cream of Mushroom
1 small can Cream of Mushroom
3/4 cup milk (ish.....maybe more)
2 TABLESPOONS Paprika
1 package Egg Noodles
Salt and Peppah

First, take out your Pampered Chef 12" Family Skillet. If you do not own one of these, get on Ebay at this very moment and get one. It's my favorite piece of cookware in the whole world.
I use it every. single. day.

"Fry you up" about 10 pieces of bacon. I'm extremely picky about frying bacon. My secret is "cookin it low and flippin it often".

If you just said to yourself:

"Hey...I'll just use that pre-cooked bacon, or the microwaveable kind instead of messing up my whole kitchen with greasy gunk and smelling up the whole house"

Go immediately to the bathroom and wash your mouth out with soap. You need a spanking.

Be a real woman, get your skillet out, and stop talking nonsense.

Can you just SMELL this? Ahhhhhhh.....hello my friend.
As in all dealings with pigs..........you can't RUSH a pig.
Whether you are clipping one or frying one.......you must be patient.
Now here's the part where it gets kinda icky and you are probably going to say, "YUCK...I'm not making this".
You must SAVE about this much bacon grease and leave it in the pan.
I would say there is maybe a cup?

I didn't put "1 cup bacon grease" in the recipe above because I didn't want you to throw up or call the American Heart Association and report me.
Add your chopped onion to the grease and let them hang out and get to know each other.

Until they look brown and yummy like this.
Then add the hamburger meat to all that greasy oniony goodness and cook the bejezies out of it.
While you are cooking the Vat O' Heart-Attack hamburger mixture, crumble the bacon.
You can try to do it with a knife, but you will just frustrate yourself and end up with bacon all over the counter, so just use your fingers from the get-go.
And don't forget to "accidentally drop" some of that bacon on the floor.
It's the perfect way to maintain the status of "Most Favorite Awesome Human" with the pups.
After you have the artery clogging hamburger mixture cooked, drain all the grease off.
(At this point, I put it in a "pot" because it makes it easier to stir later)
Add the crumbled bacon.............
the Cream of Mushroom soup............
the milk............
a good "handful" of salt..........
a good "handful" of peppah..........
and the 2 TABLESPOONS of Paprika.
(or, if you prefer, "Pap-A-Ree-kah")
Basically all the "pap-a-ree-kah" is going to do is to change it from a dog-food-looking shade of gray to a beautiful, more edible looking shade of orangeish red.
Are you still trusting me?
I promise you, just stick with me.
Your tummy will thank me later.


Boil the Egg Noodles (or "new-nules" as my sistah used to say) according to package directions.

And then Plate It Up!!!!!
Now, in order to do this the way my mom used to do, you MUST serve this with:
Green Beans
and
Deviled Eggs*
*(Not pictured because I forgot to buy eggs and was too lazy to go back to the grocery store for the 50th time this week.)