I love cold, gray, wet, and dreary days. They’re the perfect excuse to bake some bread, make a soup or stew, light a fire in the fireplace, and, generally, be a slug. All of my favorite things to do. Especially the slug part.
And today was the perfect cold, gray, wet, and dreary day to do a couple of the above. I got home too late to make bread, but I had plenty of time to make stew and be a slug. And the fireplace is being lit as I type.
Life is good.
When I make soups and stews, I somehow think I’m still cooking on an aircraft carrier. I don’t know what it is, but small amounts just do not compute. There are two of us. I do not need several pounds of meat, and even more potatoes, celery, carrots, etc… But I break out the pot and need to fill it. And we then have enough to feed the neighborhood.
My solution tonight was to just use a smaller pot. (I know… what a concept, eh?!?) I’ve tried it before with other pots – and ended up dumping everything into a larger pot. I decided to make a go of it one more time. And tonight, it worked! A manageable amount!
I also cooked the onions in bacon grease – and then because there just happened to be three slices of bacon in the refrigerator – I sliced up the bacon and added it to the onions, then browned the mushrooms and the beef. I generally don’t use bacon in my beef stew – I save it for making Julia’s boeuf bourguignon – but it was there. And I’m really glad it was.
I wasn’t vying for the complex flavors of boeuf bourguignon. I just wanted to add a bit more flavor to a Thursday night beef stew.
It worked.
Potatoes, celery, carrots, a quart of beef broth and a pinch of herbs d’Provence.
That was it.
Another thing I did differently was thicken it with rice flour. I picked up a box of it a while ago because it is especially good at thickening things that are going to be frozen. It keeps things from separating when they thaw. I added the same amount nixed with water as I would have with wheat flour and it worked just fine.
And warm cheese focaccia to dunk.
Time to slug.