Old-Fashioned Beef Stew, True Comfort Food

Inspiration

Recently I lunched at a new restaurant that did so many things wrong, it eventually became laughable. I’ll not say which restaurant it was, because my mother always told me “If you can’t say something good about a person, don’t say anything.” Same for restaurants.

But I’m willing to cut them some slack. Maybe they were having one of those “Alexander Days.” You know, the little boy who had the “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” Time will tell.

All in a Stew

With that lingering experience in mind, I decided if I wanted a comforting, cold-weather meal, I needed to make it myself. I settled on Old-Fashioned Beef Stew made in the Crock-Pot.

Memorable Stew

During my college days, I used to eat Dinty Moore’s Beef Stew, that involved only a can opener and a few minutes of warming.

But with the arrival of the Crockpot in the kitchens across the country, I’ve found it best to go with the homemade variety.

Be sure to put several slices of bacon in the pot to brown the meat before combining all the ingredients.

I’d forgotten just how labor and ingredient intensive it was to stir up a stew. I’m convinced I could bake and ice a three-layer wedding cake in the time it takes to get everything into my Crockpot.

Fortunately, I found some nicely, trimmed and chopped stew beef at Schnucks, that saved me a lot of prep time.

But there was still the peeling, cutting, flouring, sautéing, and the long overnight in the Crock-Pot. But he kitchen aroma alone was worth the effort.

A Winter Evening Treat

In time, I got everything cleaned up and put away. Now I have several meal-size servings in the freezer and a big bowl in the refrig. I look forward to many spoons of solace in the months ahead.