Hamburger Noodle Stroganoff
This is a great meal that sticks to your ribs - it doesn't take a lot to fill you up. And be sure to have a l
ot of bread, 'cause your kids will sop up every last morsel!
- 4 to 6 oz. cooked egg noodles
- 1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
- ¼ cup butter (or margarine)
- ¼ cup red wine
- ½ cup chopped onion
- 1 (10-1/2 oz) can beef broth
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 (8 oz) can sliced mushrooms, drained ¼ teaspoon pepper (or fresh mushrooms)
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1-1/2 lb ground beef
- ½ cup parmesan cheese
- 3 tablespoons flour
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt butter in large skillet; sauté onion, garlic and mushrooms about 5 minutes until golden brown. Add beef and cook until browned. Remove from heat; stir in flour, tomato sauce, wine, beef broth, salt and pepper. Return to medium heat and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Blend in sour cream (don’t boil!). Layer meat mixture with noodles in lightly greased 2-quart casserole. Top with cheese. Bake, uncovered for 25 minutes.
Kooter Futch and the Fishing Trip
Kooter Futch was about the best fisherman in the Dismal Swamps. I ain’t never seen the like of bass and catfish that man could bring home. Many’s the time we would see him pushing his old wooden wheel barrow up the rutted path into Pinetown. For those of you who are not all that familiar with the eastern part of North Carolina you will find Pinetown just on the edge of the Dismal Swamps in Beaufort County. Can’t hardly miss it. It’s that tiny little speck just alongside this big blank spot on the map. That blank spot is called by a lot of different names. Jackson Swamp and Black Hole Swamp among others, but it’s all part of the same swamp network that goes from Norfolk, Va on thru the Carolina’s, eastern Georgia and then into Florida where it ends up as the Everglades. In Virginia and the Carolinas it’s called the Dismal Swamps because the very first explorers called it a dismal place.
Pinetown has one road that goes thru the middle of town and on out Long Ridge Rd, the highest point in that part of the woods. The only access to the swamps was a spur line put in by Southern Railroad to haul out logs. My Great Grandfather was the engineer on that train and the line was called Gurkin’s Switch. In the late 40s thru the early 50s the state sent in convicts on the chain gang to dig two huge dragline ditches. The muck from the ditches was put in the middle to form the only road into the Dismal Swamps and it is called The Baseline.
Pinetown is much like many old southern towns and nearly every aspect of town business catered to or revolved around farming. A man’s worth was determined by several things. How well he paid his bills when he sold his crops. How straight a furrow he could plow. If a man drank too much moonshine now and then it wasn’t held against him unless it interfered with his social duties or family duties. The ladies had a different gauge to be measured by. Did they attend Church Sundays, keep a clean house and how did their food appeal at the Church Socials.
Then you have a whole other class of Swampers and I reckon Kooter Futch fell into that last class. His favorite smoke was a corncob pipe and someone else’s tobacco. If you were missing a settin hen or a small shoat or a pie cooling on a window sill you could just about bet that Kooter had been thru the area. He also had the neatest still on a rise in the swamps and makes some of the slickest, smoothest moonshine in the Dismals. I think I still have two or three of his jugs here and sure do hope they last.
Well, now that you have some background let me finish telling about the best fisherman in the Dismal Swamps. Our local game warden is Frank Peters from over to Belhaven and he had long suspected some kind of chicanery on the part of Kooter. He had another game warden from Wilson County to come to Pinetown and pose as a visitor from Raleigh and let it be known that he was willing to pay for a fishing guide. Heck, most everyone in the area tried for that job, but he just lounged around Miz Beasley’s boarding house until Kooter finally heard about him. Kooter struck a lick and I don’t think anyone has ever seen him move as fast as he did that day getting over to the boarding house. Well, first and last, him and the supposed fisherman hit a deal and Kooter guaranteed that he would catch fish the following morning.
Sure as sunshine Kooter came by, the next morning, and got the "fisherman" and off they went to the swamps. Us boys stood on the bank and watched Kooter poling that dugout into the swamps and it wasn’t until some later that we found out just what happened. When they got to Kooters favorite fishing hole the game warden swung out his cane pole and sat watching his bobber. About that time came the most God awful KABOOOOM and swamp muck, water and fish were just a raining on that boat. He was nearly in shock and when he finally turned to Kooter it was just in time to have a stick of dynamite stuck into his hand as Kooter flung another stick into the water. He sat looking at the game warden and finally said "Well, are you going to fish or not?"
I sure to hope Kooter gets out of jail before this last bit of moonshine runs out.
-Bob Gurkin
