Strogan...ish

Just as an addendum to my last post. If anybody [*crickets*] out there [*more crickets*] is also a ChaCha Guide, perhaps you'll agree with me when I say:

?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Okay, now that we've taken care of old business, on to the new.

One of my passions in life is to take a recipe that's really bad for you and make it...not so bad for you. It's the rare sinful treat that I can turn into health food, but I at least attempt to remove a good portion of the guilt.

Now, I should preface this by saying that I don't recall ever in my life eating honest-to-God real, legitimate, genuine beef stroganoff. The last -- and perhaps only -- version I can recall eating was a Hamburger Helper variety. I'll wait while you snicker.

In my attempts to be healthier, I have tried to get away from packaged food stuffs. If you cook things yourself, from scratch (or close to it), you can control what goes in it. And most of the time, you can even pronounce what goes in it!

So I scrounged up this beef stroganoff recipe online. I don't eat beef much because a) it's fatty, b) it's kinda gamey tasting, and c) I saw those cattle videos on the news. I know, chickens may be treated just as badly or worse, but I've gotta eat something, so ignorance is serving its proper amount of bliss on that topic.

Anyway, I made that stroganoff recipe for the first time a couple months back. I used ground chicken instead of beef, but followed the recipe and its reviewers' suggestions pretty closely. It turned out weird. So tonight, I modified it. A lot. So much so that it's hardly even the same recipe.

My version follows. And I find it pretty darn good.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 package ground turkey or chicken
• few dashes salt
• few dashes ground black pepper
• 1 tbl oil
• 1/2 to 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 2-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbl all-purpose flour
• 2 tbl corn starch
• 1 tsp Chicken "Better Than Bouillon" in 10 oz Water (this is what I have on hand - no MSG! Broth or stock can be used)
  
• 1 teaspoon Grey Poupon country-style dijon mustard
• 1 tbl worchestershire sauce
• 2 (4 oz) cans sliced mushrooms, drained
• 1 cup nonfat plain yogurt
• 1/3 cup neufchatel (AKA light cream cheese)
  

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large skillet over medium heat, in 1 tbl oil, brown the chicken/turkey, seasoning with the salt and pepper.
2. When brown, plate meat. Add the onions and garlic to pan and cook slowly for 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Dissolve flour and corn starch in the bouillon broth. Add to pan of onions and garlic. Bring to a boil and stir constantly until mixture thickens.
4. Stir in mustard and worchestershire sauce. Add the meat back in, and the mushrooms. Allow to reach boil again, then lower heat and simmer.
5. Five minutes before serving, stir in yogurt and neufchatel. Heat briefly and serve over pasta or rice.