Thursday, May 22, 2014

Another recipe to test

Last night we tested another recipe from Cook's Illustrated.    If you are interested in testing recipes scroll down the home page and on the left is information.  This recipe was a low fat healthy recipe, Country beef and vegetable stew.

We did not have high hopes for it:  the veggies and the beef went in the crock pot at the same time; the cooking time was really long for cut up chuck roast 6 to 8 hours on high and 9 to 11 hours on low.  I cook whole chucks (3 to 4 lbs ) all the time in the crock pot and never for longer than 8 hours on low.  We figured we would have mushy veggies and the meat would be done mid afternoon.  Well, we were mostly wrong.  Not a bad recipe.


Most of the ingredients.  Frozen peas still in the freezer. 


Marty trimming fat and cutting the roast into 2 inch pieces.  Interestingly, we were not to brown the meat before putting it in the crockpot.  I always brown meat first. 


Mushrooms and minced onions browned.  Later tomato paste, flour, and spices were added.


Fresh thyme ready to be pulled off the stems and chopped.


Red potatoes quartered ready for the pot.  I don't like potato peel, Marty does.  The peels were a small problem.  Some came off during cooking and were yucky.  It was if there were pieces of paper floating in the stew.  If I make this again, the potatoes will be peeled.  


Everything is in the pot and ready to cook for 8 hours.  

 

When the stew is ready to be served, frozen peas and chopped parsley were stirred  in.


Ready to be plated.  The sugar in the tomato sauce made the pot crusty.  Thank goodness I was the cook, so Marty had to wash up the dishes.  It took a little elbow grease to get it clean.


There isn't that much rice in the bowl.  It is just a ring around the stew.


After we stirred the stew and rice, you can see the peas, carrots, parsley, and other veggies.

Would we make this recipe again???   Maybe.  There is a lot of time spent prepping meat and veggies, a lot of time.  The stew was rich tasting and healthy.  There was very little fat to drain off before serving.  I used a salt substitute, and no salt or butter in the rice, so even healthier.  

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