French Dip Sandwiches

I was scrounging around the other day, trying to come up with something to make for dinner. I had been thinking hamburgers, but we were all out of ground beef. We did, however, have a medium size piece of beef. It was thin cut, and said "perfect for pan frying!" on the package, so I figured it had to be good for something. I looked up recipes for beef, and came across a recipe for French Dip Sandwiches.
Now, I love French Dip Sandwiches, so I got all excited and clicked on a few of the recipes. That's when I began to get rather disappointed. Every single recipe called for slow-cooking. Usually, I love slow-cooker recipes, but when I wanted to make a meal *now*, those recipes were no good.
I puzzled for a while, and looked around to see if I could find a recipe that didn't call for 3-4 hours. Nothin' doin'. Also, several of the recipes called for Beef Consumme. Something I didn't have, and could not make.
I considered making something else, but the idea of French Dip Sandwiches was firmly rooted in my mind, and I wasn't going to be swayed easily. Finally, I decided to just improvise, and see what happened.
My grandmother used to tell her kids that they were having "an experiment!" for supper. I like that idea. :D

I started by thawing the beef. Then, I sliced it into thin slices.

Once it was all cut up, I lay them in a frying pan and cooked them.

When they were all cooked, I chopped them up into even tinier pieces.

Then, I put them in a pot with some beef broth (2 cups of beef broth, made from bouillon) and a can of condensed French Onion Soup.

I put it on the stove, on low, to simmer.

While that simmered, I decided to fry up some extra onions with butter. This had the double effect of adding delicious flavor to my meal, and a delicious smell to the kitchen/house.

Once the onions were done, and added, I let it sit and simmer a while longer. Maybe 20 minutes or so. I could probably have been served right away, but I needed to wait until certain people were home from work, for dinner. It certainly didn't hurt it, and probably helped enhance the flavor. :)
Once I was ready to serve it, I toasted some hoagie rolls, and put a slice of mozzorella cheese on it. Any mild cheese would work, but this is what I had handy, so it served. Then, I piled on the beef, and put a small bowl of the broth, or au jus sauce, on the side.

It was oh, so good. :D

Crockpot: Stroganoff!

When I was young, there was little in this world more repulsive to me than the mushroom. As I once told a friend "I do not favor fungi". If any of you have ever made Beef Stroganoff, you know what one of the essential ingredients is. Mushrooms. :P Because of this fact, there were few dishes I hated more than Beef Stroganoff. It literally turned my stomach.

I was a strange child. Today, Beef Stroganoff is one of my favorite foods. I still strongly dislike mushrooms, but I simply don't eat that part. The rest of it is amazing.

Therefore, I decided to make Stroganoff for dinner tonight. My mom is away for the week, and that leaves the cooking to me. I haven't done any, so far this week, since my dad works odd hours such that he is often asleep in the evening. I don't usually go through the effort to cook for just myself. Tonight he was around, however, and I planned supper. I was going to work all day, so I decided to make something with the crockpot. I love my crockpot. It was a Christmas present, and I'm very proud of it, and the various concoctions I can make with it.
So this morning, about an hour before I had to leave for work, (and being the procrastinator that I am) I began to look up some recipes for good crock-pot recipes. I didn't really know what I wanted to make, but I plugged in a couple ingredients and hoped for the best. Stroganoff was one of the first things that popped up, and I thought we probably had all the ingredients. I was right. :D

Due to my time constraints, I did not take any pictures this morning, during prep. But I shall proceed to tell you all what I did, anyway. :P

I first dug in the freezer for some beef. I knew I had seen some there, just a day or two ago, and after a bit of searching, came up with two ziploc bags full of cooked beef pieces. There was a lot of fat still on it, but after cutting it up, I came out with just over a full pound of good beef. Then I added a couple tablespoons of olive oil and tossed the meat in some flour. Then I searched the pantry for cream of mushroom soup. We had no whole mushrooms (a fact which did not disappoint me in the least. :D) so the soup would have to do. The recipe called for two cans, and we only had one. Undaunted, I kept searching and came up with cream of chicken soup, and cream of celery. After a brief moment of deliberation, I decided on the cream of chicken and put the contents of both cans on top of the beef.

Next were 3 1/2 cups of water, and 3 cubes of beef bouillon. I actually didn't have any beef bouillon, but we had dried beef granules, a teaspoon of which is equal to a cube of bouillon. In it went, with a bit of extra to compensate for the chicken soup. Then I mixed it up a bit, set the crockpot to low, and raced out the door for work.

Fast-forward to this evening, when I arrived home. Delicious smells greeted me when I opened the door (one of my favorite parts of the crockpot, by the way. ^_^) and I went in to check on it.

It looked a bit oily, due in part, no doubt, to the olive oil. :P


















I then added a pint of sour cream. I meant to add more, but we didn't have more, so a pint was all it got. Turned out a pint was enough. It looked much tastier with the sour cream in it. ^_^


















Back into the crockpot it went to keep warm while I cooked the noodles.




















I opened the bag of egg noodles and poured about half a pound into the boiling water. Egg noodles are a must, when it comes to stroganoff. *nods*


















Once the noodles were done, I dished them out, and poured the crockpot's contents on it. It looked (and tasted!) delicious. ^_^




















Next up, Dessert! :D