La Stew
With spring on the horizon, this will do you almost no good at all, because it’s really a winter dish. But, since this will likely be the only Foodie week ever here on ldr.com, as I have a really, really limited number of recipes I can both cook and lay claim to as my own (or my mother’s, although I will not say that she didn’t steal them from Betty Crocker, because who the hell knows?) then I’ll just go ahead and give you what I’ve got, and you can decide when to cook it.
Oh! And, if you’re in Australia or New Zealand, then we’re coming up on winter for you – perfect timing!
What You Need:
2 lbs. stew meat
4 large baking potatoes (or a bag of baby potatoes, really, what you do with your potatoes is between you and your god)
1 bag of baby carrots (or sliced carrots, or, if you’re living in 1823, you can pick the carrots and peel them and slice them yourself, Laura Ingalls – totally your call)
1 glass of wine
1 small onion
2 packs of McCormick’s Au Jus gravy mix
2 bay leaves
olive oil
flour, salt, pepper
1 loaf of your favorite fresh bread from your bakery. (Or your own fresh baked bread. But seriously, get it from your bakery. No one needs to work that hard. Show off.)
What You Do:
First, wash, peel, and cut the potatoes into chunks. Throw those in a BIG pot, fill about 3/4 up with water. Make sure you’ve got enough space left to accommodate your beef and carrots. Put that on medium-high, let it work up to a happy boil. (Yes, happy boil is a technical term. It’s when something is boiling but doesn’t bubble up over the top and make a mess on your range. Look it up.)
(Okay. I lied. I made it up. But still. Happy boil.)
Second, if you, like me, hate to cook and/or aren’t really that good at it, and this is when your children scream, “What??? You’re cooking? AGAIN?” even though you haven’t cooked in like, seriously, MONTHS, then at this point you grab the wine and start drinking. Usually, I go with a red because it’s winter and it goes well with stew, but that’s your call. Tequila is not out of the question.
Okay, now, heat up a skillet to medium, drizzle olive oil in the bottom, and get your onion. Chop it up, throw it in, get it cooking. It’s at this point that your kids will yell, “WHAT’S THAT SMELL??? UGH!” and you’ll be wondering how children who can wear the same clothes for three days without a shower and not care are complaining about your lovely onion smell. Tell them to do their homework somewhere else, then, and take another sip of your wine. Once the onions are lightly browned, throw them in with the potatoes. Well, don’t literally throw, that would be messy and ruin your happy boil. Gently scoop them out of the skillet and into the stew pot. You know what I mean.
(No, I don’t think you’re stupid. I would have thrown them in. I’m not writing this as though you were stupid, I’m writing this as though you were me.)
Open your bag of carrots and put them in as well. Or, you know, grow them, wash them, peel them, chop them, then put them in and sew yourself a new bonnet. The old one’s getting a little dingy. Laura. How’s Manny, by the way? Did you know he played Buffy’s dad on–? Oh. Right.
Stew.
Okay. So, potatoes and carrots done, time for the stew meat. First, put more olive oil in the pan and let it get good and crackling on medium-high. Then, you have to dredge the meat. This is where my enigmatic “flour, salt, pepper” thing comes in. I usually put, oh, say, a cup of flour in a ziploc baggie, toss in some salt and pepper to taste (for me, that’s lots, but since you’re all healthy and everything, you make your own choices) and shake it up. Then I pick the stew meat pieces out one by one and put them in the pan, browning all the sides of it using a pair of tongs. You probably do this better and more efficiently; do it your way. And then e-mail me and let me know what your way is.
All right. So, stew meat is browned. You toss that in your happy boil (okay, remember, not literally) and put in the bay leaves (remember TWO not THREE not HOWEVER MANY WHATEVER but TWO because later you’re going to have finished your glass of wine and wonder, “How many bay leaves did I put in?” and you’ll fish out one less and someone will choke and… do people really choke on bay leaves? I mean, REALLY? This is what my mother has always told me and I never questioned it but… really? Because the stew meat, especially when I cook it, I can see them choking on but… I’m not instilling confidence, am I? Okay. Just… you know. Two bay leaves) and then let it boil for a couple hours.
And here is the big trick. Stir it occasionally. Check in. Ask how it’s doing. Don’t just get all drunken with your best friend after drinking mimosas for your anniversary podcast and forget about it, then when you smell something burning assume that something boiled over onto the burner. Because later, when you go to your stew all hungry and serve it only to find out that GAK the entire inch at the bottom is charcoal, and your best friend who is either too drunk or too sweet to NOT eat it says, “Oh, but the meat part is really good,” while casually grabbing for her water, you’re going to feel like a REAL tool. Keep an eye on it. Maybe don’t drink that second glass of wine, or fifth mimosa.
Okay, so assuming you’re not a tool and you didn’t burn it, about a half hour before you’re ready to take it off the stove, add two packets of the Au Jus gravy mix and stir it in. Let it sit for another 20-30 minutes, fish out the EXACTLY TWO BAY LEAVES because of the possibly urban-legendish choking hazard (although, between us girls, anyone stupid enough to eat a bay leaf…) then serve it with sliced bread.
And, word to the wise? This recipe will feed a family of four (presuming that two of the four wouldn’t go near it if they had a torch and a hazmat uniform, as is the case in my house) for about a week. It’s even better as microwaved leftovers, seriously!
Yum! Enjoy! Next year!
The only way you could choke on a bay leaf is if you somehow managed to not chew it first. So it’s possible.
Too bad you don’t cook enough to pull my mother’s favorite trick. Take a recipe you make often, wait until your family has eaten about half of what’s on their plate then ask “so, notice anything different?” My father and I drop our forks, stare first at the food, then at here and one of us – very carefully, asks “why?”
The meat WAS good! LOL
But ya, next time, we cook first and then do the podcast with mimosas, and THEN heat up the food we already cooked in the microwave, which is just safer all around.
Btw, this recipe ROCKS! Try it. Sans mimosas.
“How’s Manny, by the way? Did you know he played Buffy’s dad on–? Oh. Right.”
That’s “Manly” Lani. Because she thought he was so manly. As in she was like 10 and he was 24 and she had a thing for him. Anyway…
I might have to try this strew recipe. I normally do this thing with flour and seasoning and tomatoes and yada yada, but this looks nummy!
Lani, I have to tell ya, this is the most interesting recipe I’ve ever read. Certainly the funniest. My favorite ingredient is the glass of wine. It’s worth making just for that.
This sounds fabulous! And just as soon as I’m done losing an excessive amount of weight on NutriSystem, I am going to make it. Hubby will love it and the kidlet is sure to turn up his nose at it. A winning combination to be sure!
Cynthia – I love your mother already.
Cate – yes, show off, but do you know the actor’s name? I do. It’s Dean… something. Something Dean. Not Dean Stockwell. Dean Something. Something Dean.
Oh, hell. I knew his name, I really did.
Lani’s Best Friend aka Cindy or Sam or WHATEVER – screw cooking, next time, we order in.
Caryn – glad you liked it! I’m thinking of writing a cookbook for people who hate to cook. Should be a HUGE hit.
Deb – Good luck with NutriSystem! Yes, this is a fabulous recipe, when you don’t burn the hell out of it, but it is very hearty. And by hearty, I mean, carb-loaded. By next winter, you’ll be all ready for it!
DEAN BUTLER! Damn. That was gonna bug me all day.
Lani–speaking of Food Week here, did you know Hell’s Kitchen is going to be back April 1st? Gordon Ramsay for you, babe!
OMG! April 1st? Already? Thank God I have you to tell me these things. Yeesh! What kind of drooling fan am I?
Dean Butler.
So there. LOL
Oh, but I see you figured that out. LOL Sorry. Next time I’ll read all the comments before I show off.
I would totally buy your cookbook. I loved this recipe. If more recipes were written like this, I might actually cook more often.
My husband says to me often, “You can cook when you want to, but you rarely want to.”
Duh!
Great recipe. I don’t even care how it tastes.
I bought all the ingredients today to make it tomorrow because yes, it is spring, but no, you would absolutely not know that to look out my window. Everything is now white (it wasn’t 2 hours ago) and it’s snowing hard. They’re saying 5-8″ tonight. So I’m having stew and red wine if I can’t have my nice weather.
Lidna!!!! How are you, babe? I’m glad you’d buy the cookbook. That’s two sales down! Yay!
Jenifer – let me know how it comes out! Actually, I know – it comes out GREAT! When you don’t burn it.
You’re right. It came out great! Well, my husband’s exact words were, “It’s okay.” But, since he doesn’t really like stew, I consider that high praise and permission to make it again.
I did mess with the recipe slightly, because that’s what I do when I cook. I did the following, and all seemed okay to me:
* I didn’t peel the potatoes. I’m not a big fan of peeling potatoes, and the peels have all sorts of good vitamins. I didn’t notice excessive potato peels in the final product.
* I threw (figuratively) a couple cloves of garlic in with the onions. Because I almost always throw garlic in with onions, and garlic seems to go well with stew.
* I threw (again figuratively) the first glass of wine into the stew pot. Just the wine. I kept the glass so I’d have someplace to put my refill. Red wine adds nice flavor to stews and such. I can’t say it would have tasted any different had I not done it, but it felt very elegant.
I hope not to have the desire to cook stew again until maybe November, but I’ll get this recipe out again when I do.
2 packs of McCormick’s Au Jus gravy mix
Gaaaaahhh! We have to talk. Premixed %^$#@@#$%&*.
Mac, spill. It pained me as well to buy premixed seasonings, but I don’t make stew often and didn’t have the energy to figure out what seasonings to use. What would you put in stew?
LOL, I’ll stick with the mix, thank you. I like my wine cheap and my meals EASY.
But, Mac, if you come up with something to replace the Au Jus, let us know!
I thought all meals came premixed, preferably pre-cooked and all you have to do is reheat. Well, you learn something new every day.
Will do. I’ll post in the forums when I get my right arm working again (fell on the ice).