Healthy Homemade Hamburger Helper

This is kid-friendly comfort food. Savory. Creamy. Hidden vegetables. While searching for a ground beef stroganoff recipe, I found Eating Well's Hamburger Buddy recipe {which is much prettier than mine}. I haven't had Hamburger Helper for... I don't even know how long. I can't honestly remember what it tastes like, but this is supposed to be just like it, only healthier. Then, as I was reading the comments to see how everyone made adjustments, I clicked through to Amelia's version. Armed with all of those suggestions for adjusting the original recipe, I began whipping up my own, also increasing the amount to feed my small army, of course. The results were delicious! All of us had seconds, even Miles. It's definitely going into the regular meal rotation, along with salad.

Here are the changes I made:

• I used a 32 oz. carton of organic beef broth and added about 1-2 cups of water with the pasta.
• I used 3 carrots {probably 4 next time} and a 16 oz. box of farfalle pasta.
• I added extra garlic, 1 tsp. thyme/1 tsp. oregano instead of all thyme, and Greek yogurt instead of sour cream.
• The original recipe recommends using a food processor to chop the veggies, but the commentors said that it pureed them instead. So I used the mince grid on my handy dandy Vidalia Chop Wizard for the onions and mushrooms. I diced the carrots by hand and used jarred minced organic garlic.

Linked to Homemaking Link-Up and  Better Mom Mondays.