Yucky Stuff or Green Sauce Used Three Ways

I have this thing about fresh herbs, and basil is one of my favs.  While it does not give me quite the same culogasm that cilantro does (I *love* cilantro, just thinking about it gives me goosebumps) I still find basil to be quite the irresistibly fragrant little minx.  And so?  If I am at the Farmers Market and it looks good, I tend to buy it, often with no real purpose in mind.  But then...since when do you need a purpose to buy fresh herbs right?  You -find- a purpose, right? Wrong.  When you have children, and an obsessive commitment to canning, things get lost in the shuffle. 

Such was the case last week, I bought two large bundles of deliciously scented basil with high aspirations, and what I ended up with was a bag of swiftly wilting leaves.  Wilting leaves and deep feelings of regret.  I was not just going to let these lovely darlings go quietly into that good night, though, I had to save them.  I -had- to.  And so?  I created what my daughter would eventually dub 'Yucky Stuff' (She never actually tasted it, just made a snap judgment, and that became the gospel according to Mini-Me.  Nothing to be done but accept it...yeah, the inmates TOTALLY run the asylum around here.)  However, contrary to the opinion of our resident preschooler, my Basil Rescue Sauce was actually quite tasty...and quite useful.

Mom's Quick and Dirty Beef Stroganoff

Look at them there...so smug.

I am the child of a working mother, one who readily professed, loud and often, her hatred of cooking.  Needless to say my love of the culinary arts is not a legacy, I am new chefy, not old chefy... please do not judge me too harshly.  Typically dinnertime in my house looked like this; can of English peas warmed with a dollop of low-fat margarine and a tablespoon of sugar, boxed rice pilaf, and chicken baked to death with a liberal dose of Morton's Season-All (it really did season all in our house...-all-). Sometimes there was spaghetti with English peas, sometimes there were dry pork chops with English peas. That was her go to vegetable on nights when she returned from the government trenches to three starving people.  It was all about simplicity you see?  Crack open a can and go...autopilot.  One unintended consequence of this pea overuse is that I despise them and most canned vegetables with the white hot fury of a thousand suns. ..and season salt too...but less so.

Every so often, however, the clouds would break and we would get a temporary reprieve from bottled spaghetti sauce and overcooked chicken; we would get Mom's version of Beef Stroganoff (with English peas, but what can you do?).  Back when we were eating red meat (pre-Turkagedon), it was a sour, saucy bit of deliciousness constructed within five minutes and on the table in twenty (later she tried it with turkey and...just...no).   Once, utterly famished, I asked how long it was going to take her to cook and she said "I'm making Beef Stroganoff, baby, it'll be ready shortly.  It's quick and dirty.".  Quick and dirty.  We did not have it often because my mother was the consummate dieter, reluctant to let us partake of such delights as regular soda, real cheese or in this case... real sour cream.  Oh, but when we did?  It was a steaming mountain of ground beef, ornamenting a split pop tin biscuit or curly egg noodles.  It was easy to ignore those wretched peas when they were placed aside (or sometimes beneath)  such profound, childhood excellence.