a99kitten's Musings

Even though it has not been terribly wintery all January (pretty much do **not** like you at all right now Mother Nature), it’s still pretty darn chilly at night. So warm and wintery dinners sound good. I found several recipes for beef stew and thought I’d try that!

As a a kid, I LOVED Dinty Moore beef stew. There is nothing short of a zombiepocolypse that could get me to eat that now (no clue what that meat is…), but boy oh boy did I love it when I was 10-11yrs old. So I combined several recipes that I found that kinda sorta looked like I remembered and changed it a little for my tastes:

Ingredients:

2 lbs of beef cut into 1″ (ish) cubes – I asked the guy at the meat counter for the best type/quality of beef (you need some marbly fat)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 clove of garlic – minced
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 shallot – chopped (all recipes I found called for onion but ick)
2 cups beef broth
1/2 cup red wine
4 baby red and 4 baby white potatoes – quartered (left skin on)
4 carrots – peeled and sliced
10 oz white mushrooms – sliced (no recipe I found called for this but I love mushrooms)

For later: 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup cream

All of the recipes called for celery – also yuck. But if you like it, go for it.

Directions:

Place meat in the slow cooker. In a small bowl, combine the flour, salt and pepper. Pour over the meat and stir to coat the meat with the flour mixture.

Stir in the garlic, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, beef broth, wine and veggies. Then put in the bay leaf and stir in but kind of on top.

Cover and cook on low for 10-12 hours. The cook on high option says 4-6 hours but I always prefer the low cook.

At around 9.5 hours I thought it looked a little watery for stew. So I added the additional 1/4 cup flour and cream. This pretty much made it perfect. It cooked for another 1hr 15 mins and YUM!

Plus I’m guessing it will be even better tomorrow!

I’m thinking next time, use 1.5 cups of broth to prevent the wateriness. Maybe? Or maybe just keep the cream ;)

Another yummy sounding winter recipe that I found after digging through my big box of recipes (that I really need to get sorted out.) Plus it sounded like a fairly easy one and I like those :) I did change it to suit my tastes AS USUAL!

INGREDIENTS:

4 (to 6) boneless chops about 1″ thick
1/2 cup flour, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons sweet paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
10 ounces sliced mushrooms (original recipe called for 8oz and I say the more mushrooms, the better!)
6 tablespoons butter, divided (I used unsalted)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion (I used a whole small shallot)
1/2 cup thinly sliced celery (I did not use, but did mic in about 1/4 teaspoon of celery seed)
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup milk (I used non-fat as that’s what in my house…probably even creamier with whole milk)
salt and pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350°.

In a wide, shallow bowl, combine 1/4 cup of the flour, the paprika, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper; Stir to blend well. Dredge the chops lightly to coat all sides.

In a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter; add the mushrooms and cook until tender and golden brown. Remove to a plate and set aside.

Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the skillet and brown the pork chops on both sides, for about 3 to 4 minutes on each side. Remove the pork chops to a baking dish and set aside.

Add the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter to the skillet and add the onion and celery (seed). Cook, stirring, until onion is tender. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of flour to the skillet and stir to blend into the onion mixture. Add the chicken broth and milk and cook, stirring, until thickened. Stir in the mushrooms and add salt and pepper. Stir in the lemon juice.

Pour the sauce mixture over the chops in the baking dish. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 1 hour.

I served over Jasmine rice because I could live off of the saucy white rice combo :) This was DELICIOUS. It was like a homemade cream of mushroom recipe. So, less people (yes..talking to you pretentious foodies) might not be AS condescending about using not an actual can of cream of mushroom soup in a recipe. Maybe. But probably not. But then, if I cared about that, I’d probably not have a #zombiepocolypse supply of blue box mac and cheese in my pantry. :)

It’s cold & snowing outside and my 49ers just lost and got booted out of play-off contention so comfort food is needed. Stat.

First. Put this on.

:)

Then….

Slice up spicy Italian sausage (I used 5)
Slice up some mushrooms (I used a package of mushrooms – 10 oz)

Brown them in some olive oil

Meanwhile, boil some water

Make some pasta – I used a box of Gluten-free, non-GMO Quinoa rotini (yeah…we’ll see…)

Once both are done, mix in a baking dish, pour in a jar of sauce (or gravy if you prefer Corleones) and a few handfuls (big giant football player handfuls) of mozzarella. Make sure mixed well and bake at 350 (oh yeah…preheat your oven) for 25 minutes or so. FYI – I used “Rao’s Homemade Arrabbiata” sauce to keep with the spicy theme.

Then sprinkle Parmesan on it and bake a few more minutes.

Eat.

Simple.

And if your team lost and you are out of play-off contention, pour a glass of red too :)