tasty tasty tasty stew

[solarbird]

I was listening to music while shredding old receipts - hey, it's better than having a final today, which I didn't, because I am DONE! for the quarter (yay!) - when I suddenly noticed I could read the Japanese song titles iTunes was displaying. Cool.

For those wondering, I did keep working through my Japanese course, even though I had dropped to audit. I'd have passed. With a solid B, which normally would have been amazingly great, but since I have to be stupidly GPA-focused for the time being, it was better that I didn't have that B.

I haven't started taking flower pictures again yet, but there are some great opportunities. I need to start taking them! Oh well, here's one of the remaining leaf pictures from last fall.


A Light in the Forest

I made beef stew for dinner, which is the first time I've ever made that. It turned out really well. In fact, I think it's about the best European-derived meal I've ever made outside thanksgiving. I made it based on a combination of two recipes, one I found here and one in the 1964 Joy of Cooking. The recorded the combination as I made it below the cut.

Beef Stew
Serving in bread bowls - or at least with a nice sourdough bread on the side. Serves about 10.

INGREDIENTS
• 1 1/2 pounds cubed beef stew meat
• 1/4 cup general-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup crushed croutons (Combine this and the above to make 1/2 cup "seasoned flour")
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style diced tomatoes
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can tomato paste
• 14 ounces beef broth (from bouillon)
• 6 carrots, quartered and chopped (rough)
• 6 potatoes, unpeeled, chopped (rough)
• 1 large onion, chopped (rough)
• 2 sticks celery, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, pressed
• 1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
• 3 or 4 cloves
• about 3/4 teaspoon garden thyme
• about 1 teaspoon garden rosemary
• 2 tablespoons Dijon-style prepared mustard
• 1/3 cup mirin (or so)
• about 1/2 teaspoon mixed pepper, ground
• 1 bay leaf
• sea salt (to taste)

DIRECTIONS
1. Combine meat, flour, and crushed croutons in a large plastic food storage bag and toss to coat evenly.
2. In a wok (or similar), sear or brown meat in vegetable oil and mirin. Do not cook all the way through! Season with additional salt and/or pepper, if desired. Transfer to large cooking pot when done.
3. Add potatoes, celery, onion, garlic, beef broth, carrots, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, pepper, parsley, rosemary, bay leaf, cloves, and thyme. (Basically everything left except the mustard.) Bring to boil; reduce heat to medium-low, cover; and simmer for 1 hour or until beef is tender.
4. Blend in mustard per serving to taste (about 1/3 teaspoon per serving), and serve in bread bowl.

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Comments

[wytwolf.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a beautiful picture. The best thing about living in Washington is there is no lack of beautiful things to take pictures of. :) What camera do you use if you don't mind me asking? I'm always curious because I go around taking pictures of stuff on my free time. ^_^

Also, that beef stew recipe looks good. I always make the traditional kind myself. I'll have to try that one one, thanks for sharing.

[solarbird]

The best thing about living in Washington is there is no lack of beautiful things to take pictures of. :)
The western half of the Cascadian bioregion has light that really lets you pull a lot of colour into plant photographs, so I take advantage of it. (It's because of all the clouds.) Plus all the rain is why we can have so many large plants we can shoot. ^_^

What camera do you use if you don't mind me asking?
For the last... hum... year and a half, I think, I've been using spazzkat's semi-abandoned Canon PowerShot A80 for all the shots. (He has a newer, smaller, and no doubt better model now, so I carry around this one. Before that I had (and still have) a weird Olympus model which was fine that I got on clearance for very cheap; it was only two megapixels but had an onboard printer! Unfortunately, this asshole at the Garden Show absolutely had to have the copy of the garden show flyer I'd put my camera down on and not the ones next to it, so she reached around me and yanked it - and my Olympus went smash. And she took off, the bitch. Now it doesn't focus right, tho' it's usable at the widest angle.

Also, that beef stew recipe looks good. I always make the traditional kind myself. I'll have to try that one one, thanks for sharing.
What's the traditional kind?

Oh, and you can use the wine of your preference. I used mirin because it's the cooking wine I have and I like its flavour. The Joy of Cooking recipe called for a dry white. It also added half a pound of diced salt pork (blanched if too salty, tho' I don't really know what blanching is) and a full 2lbs beef instead of 1 1/2.

[sksouth.livejournal.com]

I am a Daisy

[solarbird]

HI DAISY!