For my second Pioneer Woman recipe, I decided to make one of my favorite dishes: Beef Stroganoff.

• Name of Recipe: Beef Stroganoff
• Cookbook: Dinnertime
• TV Episode: Kitchen Confessional: Dinner Through the Decades (Season 10, Episode 4)
• Rating: 1.75 out of 5

As someone who did not grow up eating a lot of red meat, beef stroganoff was not something I can really remember having as a child or even a teenager. I fell in love with beef stroganoff a number of years ago when my best friend made it for dinner for us. He claims that the recipe is from his grandmother, but he leaves out certain ingredients such as mushrooms since he doesn’t like them. Needless to say, this has been the version I’ve been making for a few years.

Until I stumbled upon Ree’s recipe. Featured in her cookbook, Dinnertime! this recipe looks amazing and it is super simple.

Unfortunately, I was underwhelmed by it. There were a number of factors that could lead to this, including the fact that I may have been too hungry to give the dish enough time to reduce and develop more flavor. It could also be that this was one of the first dishes I made from start to finish and from scratch in a new kitchen. Learning how appliances work and operate can be tricky especially in unfamiliar territory.

I decided to pair this recipe with a side of Ree’s buttered noodles, which comes from the same cookbook. (I’ll have another post about that coming soon.) Sadly, it didn’t add anything to write home about for this dish.

While this dish had potential, for me, it missed the mark. At some point, I may try to make this dish again since it seems a lot of things weren’t really working for it.

I don’t have many pictures for this recipe…in fact, I don’t even have a fully plated one. But here is what it looks like towards the end of the cooking process.

It definitely looks like it would be tasty, no? Maybe I did something wrong…

Oh, well. Not everything I make will be stellar. I am coming to terms with that…just wait until I tell you about the Billionaire Brownies from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook!

Until next time, keep on cooking!