I rarely cook beef, never ever cooked Stroganoff, but wanted to indulge my boyfriend, who suffers regularly through my 70-percent vegetable creations because he’s sweet like that. I’ve noticed that men like meat covered in goo, and food that is of uniform color. Yeah, I know there are foodie men out there. But there’s been a preponderance of goo-lovers in my kitchen.

I modified this recipe from Bon Appetit. The original called for 3/4 stick of butter in a meal for four! What the?! I used 1 tablespoon of butter in the entire recipe, cut the oil for sauteeing in half, used light sour cream in place of heavy cream, and still the meal turned out rich and yummy. I also only used 1 and 3/4 lbs of meat, which I recommend doing because there was just enough sauce. Otherwise, bump up the volume of sauce ingredients, because the sauce is really the best part.

Because it’s beef, it clocked in at 9 WW points, plus another three for the bed of whole wheat egg noodles. And, if you’re me, 2 pts additional for a glass of red wine. (For once I only had one glass.)

I’m scared to know how rich the original recipe was! One to pad your ribs for harsh Russian winters — and provide a good, strong base for drinking a lot of vodka.