21 days!

Today has been BUSY! Sorta.

 

Okay okay, just my evening.  (I went Christmas shopping and then to a Passion Party at a friends house).

On to the rambling!

 

Adam has been wanting to learn to cook and start cooking more and stuff so I'm teaching him.  He has checked out a couple cookbooks from the library and I told him he can pick something and make it.  In one cookbook he chose a stew recipe and it had parsnips and turnips in it and I have never had them, the kids haven't had them, and Robert was unsure about them so instead I taught him to make our family stew recipe. In the crockpot. And it was goooood!

 

I didn't get a picture of all the steps (which probably would have been a great idea) because I was helping him not burn stuff or himself, not chop his finger off, etc. You know, the important stuff.  We put it together this morning and had dinner done before we even had lunch.

 

Here he is slicing up the carrots. He tried to be all pro chef like and go chop chop chop 50 miles per hour but I stopped him. He doesn't have the experience to try to be all food network in the kitchen. It was cute to see him try though.

 

 

Dumping a can of corn and can of green beans into the crockpot.  Also already in the pot are potatoes and sliced carrots.

 

Stirring the meat.  He had just added the flour and broth so he was also making gravy - his first gravy! *Sniff*  Milestones.

 

The recipe, if anyone is interested.  I usually make mine the crockpot because I can put it together and hours later it is yummy and HOT and good and easy and blah blah blah - CROCKPOT!

Stew meat, cut into small pieces
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 whole medium onion, diced
1/4 cup flour (this is a guess, I don't measure -see notes below)
1 can beef broth
seasonings (I use garlic salt, seasoning salt, pepper, meat tenderizer, and red pepper flakes)
Worcestershire sauce
5-6 potatoes, peeled and diced into 1-inch cubes
1-2 carrots, sliced
1 can corn or 1 cup frozen corn
1 can green beans (personally haven't tried frozen so don't know if they work)

In a crock pot or large pot put in your peeled, diced potatoes, sliced carrots, corn, and greenbeans. 
In skillet heat up the olive oil and add the onion and garlic.  Cook until soft (DON'T BURN).
Add the stew meat.  Season meat with seasonings and Worcestershire sauce.  Cook until meat is done. 
Mix in the flour, you want to soak up the drippings/juice/fat from the meat and create a paste-y meat mixture, it will no longer be white, but it won't be so dry. Add in the beef broth. Stir to mix and allow the flour stuff to meld with the broth.  If you add the broth before the flour has attached itself to the meat you get clumps of flour. No bueno.
Put meat and gravy mixture into pot on top. DON'T STIR IT IN. Well I guess you can, but I don't. Add water or more broth until just at meat level. Or cover the meat, depends on how much gravy you want.

Put lid on crockpot and set the heat setting and walk away to drool over the smell for the rest of the day - high is done in 4 hours, but even better at 5-6 hours. Low is 7-8 hours and perfecto.

IF you cook in a pot and not a crockpot, I would put it on low-medium heat and stir it every 30 minutes or so to make sure it is not sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning. The lower the heat is the safer, but also will take longer to cook. It will probably be done in an hour or two, depending on the heat.  If you want, crank up the heat - just stay close to stir more often.  Stew is done when potatoes are soft and it is bubbly.


Careful it is HOT!
 
Phew, I got in my post for today! Cut it close though.
 
In case you were wondering, I'm TRYING to post one post each day for the month of December. I really hope I can keep it up.  I MIGHT keep it up year-round... Would you want to hear from me everyday for a year??