CafeChatNoir

Success! I wrote everything down as I went along and I’m glad I did, cause I definitely will use this again someday and I’m sure I won’t remember what I did. However, I think less corn next time or skip it altogether. Still quite good!

Beef Stew

1.5# stew meat, if yours comes like it does here, you’ll need to cut it down into smaller pieces
1 c carrots, chopped
4 white potatoes, chopped into chunks
1/4 lg onion (softball sized), cut into large chunks
1 sm can (11 oz) sweet corn, drained
1 t thyme
1 t pepper
1/2 t salt
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
bay leaf
2T worchestershire sauce
1.5 c Guinness
1.5 c beef stock
3T AP flour
3T butter

Brown beef, and drain.
Melt butter over medium low heat, add flour and get your roux on.
Whisk in stock and beer
Add everything else.
Bring to a boil and let boil for 5 minutes.
Reduce heat to low, let simmer for 1 hour
Play the “where the hell did the bay leaf go” game and remove

Dumplings – straight from Bisquick

2 cups Original Bisquick mix
2/3 cup milk

Stir ingredients until soft dough forms.
Drop by spoonfuls onto boiling stew; reduce heat.
Cook uncovered 10 minutes. Cover and cook 10 minutes. (Note: This is a good time to clean the bowl you used to mix this up, I know from experience that it can and will turn to cement if not cleaned fast enough.)

The dumplings were a tiny bit on the gooey side – I forgot how much those suckers expand and the initial spoonfuls were a little too big.

Testing comment count plugin, and Open ID plugin.

(Neither of which seems to want to work…)

I have promised my brother that there will be beef stew & dumplings in the house in the next 72 hours. The dumplings are easy enough – that’s why we have this magic stuff called Bisquick. The stew? Well, it occurred to me that I have never actually made beef stew. How does one spend near 35 years on this planet and not make beef stew? I don’t know, but somehow I managed it. I don’t have a recipe and I’d just as soon wing it, cause that’s more fun anyway.

The basics of it are easy enough – beef, carrots, onions, corn, potatoes. Lots of potatoes. Salt, pepper, worchestershire, garlic, thyme, bay leaves. Where it is going to get interesting is the liquid. How much and what? Water, stock, beer, wine? I’ve looked over lots of different recipes and the proportions of beef/vegetables to liquid are all over the place. Figure start with less and add until it it’s right. (Not quite sure how I will be gauging “right” but I figure I’ll know it when I see it.)

I’ll take notes so if it comes out well, I’ll remember what I did next time. Or if it’s awful, what NOT to do next time.