Snow Day Stew

Yesterday was yet another snow day, giving us a break from drama rehearsal. Although it was doubtful I would have gone anyway because I spent most of yesterday and the day before squeezing myself in a tiny ball and willing my stomach to stop churning on itself.

Having woken up yesterday morning and thinking that I had mostly recovered, I realized that I had defrosted beef cubes and hadn’t done anything with them, which meant that I had to do something with them today or throw them out. So, not really wanting to cook because I’m still keeping myself on another day of bread and ginger ale, I threw a bunch of stuff in my crock pot.

Here’s the thing about my crock pot: it’s amazing. If I could make every dinner by just throwing ingredients in a crock pot in the morning and magically have dinner ready when I get home, I would, but I have yet to find a crock pot that can accurately make lasagna. But for stews and soups and chili and the like, it’s amazing and I love it.

I wasn’t really sure of what I wanted to make but I like making sustaining foods that I can just grab and heat up and eat later. Like chili. Or chicken salad. Or anything that requires me to only have to prepare it once and then it’s easily accessible and very bring-to-work-able. I don’t like loading it up with potatoes and other starch or carb-heavy ingredients to make it hearty. So, what I did was research a number of different stews from lots of different recipe sites and came up with my own thing:

Snow Day Stew
1 1/2-2 lbs beef cubes
1 small can tomato paste
1 beef bouillon, dissolved in 2 cups of water
1 square baker’s unsweetened chocolate
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3 Tbsp flour (your choice of what kind- just helps thicken the broth)
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp oregano
1/2 Tbsp chili powder (you can lessen this if you don’t like spiciness)
1/2 Tbsp cumin

Throw in crock pot and cook on high for about 5 hours.

Add in:
1 green pepper (chopped)
1 red pepper (chopped)
2 celery stalks (chopped)

Cook on high for about an hour and serve.

So there you have it – hearty, filling stew that has some kick and give you a good balance of meat and veggies without relying on potatoes. James suggested that the next time I make this, I throw in some mushrooms as well. I didn’t have any but based on James’ 2 helpings last night and the fact that I think he took the rest to work with him today, it wasn’t so bad for an on-the-fly concoction.

Next time I’ll take some pics. The stomach thing really put a damper on my energy levels.

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