The Idiot Chef, Day 5: Idiot's Stroganoff

This is my mother's stroganoff recipe. It is, honestly, rather sad in comparison to other stroganoff recipes I've seen (braised short ribs in a mushroom cream sauce, anyone?), but its virtues are:

1) It is easy (more on that later).
2) It is cheap (ground beef instead of steak, canned soup and sour cream instead of a scratch cream sauce).
3) It is fast (at most takes fifteen minutes - it can take that long just to brown steak cuts).

You'll probably see some variations on this as time goes on and I start trying the seven or eight OTHER stroganoff recipes I have (have I mentioned I love stroganoff?).

1 pound ground beef

can golden mushroom soup

can of beef broth (I buy broth in bulk, so I just filled the empty soup can with broth).

1 jar sliced mushrooms (I suppose you could use fresh, but given the rest of the recipe, why bother?)

Worcestershire sauce (2 tbsp.-ish)

Egg noodles (not sure how much; I'll explain why in a minute).

Sour cream (the recipe calls for 8 oz; I had a little less, but it didn't present a problem).

Brown the meat and drain the excess fat. Add the liquid ingredients and the mushrooms and bring to a boil. Stir in egg noodles, cover and cook until noodles are tender (5-8 minutes, max). Remove from heat, stir in sour cream. Serve immediately, and immediately refrigerate any leftovers (the sour cream does not wait for you to watch LOST before it goes bad).

Unfortunately, I didn't do such a good job on this one. First mistake: too much meat. The recipe as written fits comfortably in a 10-inch skillet. I used a pound and a half of meat. This meant that when the time came to add the noodles that my skillet was really crowded. I thought, "oh, well, I'll just add the noodles a handful at a time to keep it from getting too full." Which would have worked, had I removed it from the heat. Unfortunately, the liquid was still merrily boiling while I added egg noodles like they were my last eye of newt. Which meant it all boiled away. Which meant that the meat and etc. at the bottom of the pan started to stick. Then burn. I add more broth in an effort to prevent it, but to no avail. The parts that didn't taste of char were perfect; unfortunately, that was only slightly more than half the dish. Lesson learned: use 1 pound of meat, and add the noodles all at once.