Beef Stroganoff

I remember hating it as a young kid.  I would ask my mom what we were having for dinner, and she would say "George is making Beef Stroganoff".  George, of course, being my dad.  Beef Stroganoff, of course, being something that my young palette couldn't enjoy for a few more years.  And I remember it taking forever.  And all of that pounding of the beef on the cutting board with the cool little hammer.

Why all the pounding?  "To make it more tender", my mom would say.  My mom would say this because good ol' George would just look at me and half-way grin and go back to the all-day process of making the stuff.  Such a pity when we could have just had hamburgers, I thought.

By the time I was a teenager, I really loved the stuff.  Dad didn't always make it anymore, as he was slowing down a lot.  But my mom was learning to cook a lot of the things that Dad used to cook, and she was getting better at it. (A side note:  my mom was not what I called a good cook.  She would admit it, too.  But after my dad stopped cooking, she actually became much better.  Until, of course, she stopped putting in key ingredients that she thought were unhealthy, which is a completely different story.)  I really looked forward to Stroganoff as I aged.

Fast forward to now.  Sure, you can get the stuff when you dine out...sometimes.  And I think Noodles has it on the menu.  Not quite the same as home made, though.  Now my lovely wife makes it.  Not often, mind you, but it is awesome.  We had it for dinner tonight and I am engorged.

I never thought I would like Beef Stroganoff.  Or meat loaf.  Or Mom's stuffed peppers.  Oh, wait...I still hate those.  Sorry, Mom.