Sunday, February 3, 2008

Way Too Much Beef Stew

Broth Added to Slow Cooker

The first recipe I decided to try out in my shiny new slow cooker was beef stew. I found the recipe in my cookbook, which said it was good for both medium and large slow cookers. Great! I thought, My slow cooker counts as "medium" for this book, so we're good to go!

Do you see where the flaw in this logic might be?

So if the amounts in the recipe are good for both a medium and large slow cooker, and my slow cooker is at the small end of this cookbook's "medium" scale... Yup, it made waaaaaay too much beef stew for my poor little medium slow cooker. Being the oblivious, inexperienced cook that I am, I didn't realize this fact until I'd already added the carrots and potatoes, cooked all the meat, and mixed in the celery and onion. Only when I went to scoop the meat mix into the slow cooker did I realize there was no way it would all fit and still leave the recommended 2-inch gap at the top.

So I pulled out all the carrots and potatoes, divided all the ingredients in two, and immediately refrigerated one half. I then refilled the slow cooker, this time with only half of the ingredients. Four hours later, I cooked up some rice and had a very yummy, very tender beef stew for dinner. :)

There still remains one problem, however. Just a half-batch is almost too much food for me. There is at least 4 more servings I can get out of my leftovers, and that's not counting the second batch that I'm cooking up now. Oi! I'm hoping I can give some of it to my local friends...

Update, 6:10 PM: Hey... couldn't I freeze the excess? What wonders of modern technology!

4 comments:

John Cowan said...

See this ham tale and my comment on it.

John Cowan said...

Arrgh. I began to wonder if I had tossed you this link before, and I not only had, you blogged on it. Gaah.

Memory is almost the first thing to go.

Arthaey Angosii said...

Hehe, no worries. It's still an amusing story, and since I'm forgetful too, the story's still good on a second reading. :)

I'm just going to assume, by bringing up such cooking ineptitude, you meant that I'm not all that bad at the cooking thing, considering. ;)

John Cowan said...

Bingo.

Which leads to this silliness from Language Hat's comments:

Q. What exactly do you do?
A. I am a mungo. I salvage and resell discarded goods.
Q. What sort of mungo are you?
A. I am a mongo mungo.
Q. And you are rather a successful and well-respected one?
A. Yes, I am considered a mondo mongo mungo.
Q. Whereabouts do you live?
A. Kinshasa.
Q. And what sort of mongo do you specialise in?
A. Mainly military - old sports equipment from the army bases, chiefly.
Q. So, let me get this right: you're a mondo Congo pongo fungo mongo mungo?
A. B1ngo.