In Celebration of the Weather: Beef Stew.

August brought Houstonians stretches of days where the temperature outside wasn't below three digits.  There was no breeze.  There was no rain.  We were asked to conserve water. We were asked to keep our indoor thermostats as high as we could.  Our sweat had sweat. IT. WAS. HOT.

And September rolled in like an angry British bouncer, breaking up the hot weather whilst screaming: "OL RITE, WHAT'S OL DIS DEN?"
And we got a breeze, and wonderful weather, and just like that everyone (in Houston) was happy again.
(The breeze and hot weather has not been kind to Central Texas, however. The fires have been brutal to say the least, and my heart goes out to all of those out there that are suffering--businesses, families, livestock and pets.)

This lovely weather has made me yearn for Fall--and what a better meal to celebrate Fall anticipation than a Beef Stew!



Taken from this recipe, I substituted the water for beef stock to liven up the flavor, and added garlic where there was none.

Ingredients! Yes!

The lesson today was one of understanding the limitations of your utensils; I should have cut the recipe in half, as my slow cooker can only hold about four quarts.  The beef was pressed up against the top of the lid, which I'm mostly sure isn't good for the beef or the recipe.

 Quite literally a "Hot Mess."

We have not tried the beef stew yet, as it needs to slow cook for nine hours (and I started it late, oh well), and I'm a little reticent to taste it for the reasons above.  I don't think it will taste bad, just not sure about it from a quality standpoint to be honest.

Two good things came out of this recipe.  First, I used some of the potato that I couldn't fit into the slow cooker and used them for a quick version of potato pancakes.

I threw the washed/peeled/cubed potatoes in the food processor with the grater attachment, and made short work of it.  To that I added egg whites (leftover from an ice-cream recipe last week), salt, pepper, and flour.  I would have added some grated onion but wasn't interested in authenticity, just expediency.

I heated up a pan, threw in some olive oil**, and got to work frying them up.  I made an egg scramble with ham, mushrooms, garlic and chopped onion, and threw that on top of the pancakes.

I wish this weren't so blurry.  Need to work on my photo skillz.

The second good thing to come out of this recipe is that J is on his way now (at the time of writing this) to buy a bigger slow cooker, so such a fiasco won't happen again.

Beef Stew--not a total bust, not a total win, but the adventure and consolation prizes were well worth it.

**Note: I know olive oil isn't choice for frying, as it has a low smoke-point, but it served my purpose as only used about 2tbs for the whole deal.