So I found this recipe some time ago and have altered it a bit and now it's an easy dinner to keep everything on hand for.
What you need: bag of egg noodles ( I only use about half the bag per meal), one cup of sour cream, McCormick's Hearty Beef Stew Slow Cooker mix (yup they have a stroganoff version but it just don't taste right), and some stew meat.
For the stew meat I like to go with the larger chunks since in our store we have a choice between 1 inch or so size pieces and really little pieces that would probably be great for something that doesn't cook so long. They also have 2 different size packages one about a pound and a half and the other roughly 3 lbs, I go with the smaller, we just don't need 3 lbs of meat for 5 people.
The original recipe called for some diced onion (that I could never taste so I just started leaving out) and sliced mushroom which I just cannot eat cooked mushrooms, um no.
I usually start this about 1 in the afternoon while I'm fixing me some lunch before I go get in line to pick the kids up from school.
Just dump the stew meat into your trusty slow cooker/crock pot whatever, and make sure to break it up a little after being all squished together in the package.
Grab a measuring cup and fill with about 1 and a half cups water or beef broth, the broth doesn't add anything that I've noticed but hey it doesn't hurt, mix in your hearty beef stew mix and pour over the meat.
Now get about another half cup of water to get the rest of the mix out of the mesuring cup, no matter what I do I can never get it to all come out at once.
Stir everything around good and crank the cooker up to high, put the lid on and walk away.
Come back about 4 hours later and this is what you'll see. Carefully give it a stir, I say carefully because well the meat just falls to pieces.
Now you need to boil the water for the noodles, they may only take 5 minutes to cook but it seems to take 30 minutes to boil enough water for them.
We now add the sour cream, I only buy those little 1 cup containers when they're on sale for cheaper than the big ones and this just hasn't happened recently, so out comes the little 1/4 cup and I get to make a mess with the sour cream, drop a cup into the meat.
Which will then look like this. Give it a stir and....
Guess what... You're done. Yup that's all there is left to that, now for those noodles whose water finally decided to boil.
My package says 6-7 minutes til done, I say I get soggy noodles after that long then mixing with that really tasty sauce up there, so I go for about 5 minutes cooking time, then drain, duh.
Now here's where things can be debated, some people want the sauce poured over the noodles, not all mixed together. I say when you cook it you can serve it however you like.
I just find it easier to serve and to put away the leftovers when it's all mixed up. This seems to make about 6 good servings, we always have leftovers when it's just the 5 of us eating, but it would be easy enough to double the sauce recipe to use the whole bag of egg noodles to serve roughly 10 adults.
Cooked elbow macaroni, chopped tomato, cooked bacon pieces and fresh from our garden green onions.
Here's where I made a big change to the original recipe: mayo (1/2 cup), red wine vinegar (a good tbsp.) salt and pepper.
Mix your dressing up in a large bowl and add the other stuff, you can save some onions to make it look pretty or try to hide them in the sauce to get the kids to eat them without the "what's the green things" whine that I listen to.
Stir it all together and you're done.
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