S'pretty good: Back on track! - Wintery beef stew

I've decided, on this rainy Christmas day, that I need to do the right thing now and start talking about food again. I haven't given up on talking in person, day to day about food and every time I do, it seems like someone asks, "When was the last time you updated your blog?" Now I will answer, Christmas Day, but I will continue to do so.

Over the past few weeks (okay, months) I've been doing some interesting cooking and eating more than my share of the plentiful bounty of the season. And based on that last phrase, you may also think that I've gotten a job writing greeting cards, but I haven't. I am looking forward to my trip to Dublin for New Years and also starting my new job as a lobbyist in the state legislature for a Virginia non-profit!

I even thought about writing in my blog on one particularly cold evening in the time between it getting cold and our landlord turning on the boiler so that the radiators would work. I decided that it was the perfect time to make a beef stew as it was just getting cold and something nice and slow-cooked in a CrockPot would suit the season just right. I visited our local butcher shop and asked advice of a brilliant Chef-Butcher-Charcutier (consequently my brother, Chris). He hooked a brother up with a beautiful chunk of beef with a cartoonish bone in the center. After buying the appropriate vegetables, seasonings and stock, I rushed home to assemble the warming concoction. Here is the approximate recipe:

1 cartoonish piece of beef, purchased from your brother
1 box or about 2 cans of nice beef stock (or broth)
2-3 stalks of celery (chopped into 1/2 in. slices. You know, something-you'd-want-to-find-in-a-stew size)
2 medium carrots, chopped the same way
2 cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
1/2 medium onion
1/2 c. red wine (or what ever seems reasonable)
Salt and pepper
Fat*
Olive oil and butter and maybe bacon fat or pork fat or whatever you want to use as a fat to brown the meat. I used olive oil and a bit of pork fat to brown the beef and then butter and oil on the veggies. (Not margarine or anything nasty like that!)

Start with a large skillet or a sauce pan big enough to fit your beef and vegetables with room for liquids and heat olive oil (and pork fat, if you want) until smoking hot. Sprinkle your beef with salt a pepper on every side (not too much!!!) Roll dinosauresc chunk of meat in flour until lightly covered and place in pan. It should make a lot of fuss about being cooked and stick initially. When it stops sticking and it looks thoroughly and darkly browned (almost cripsy on the outside) flip and repeat on the other side. Keep the heat way up. When the sides are brown, put it on its end and brown all the way around. Take off the heat

Add some butter and oil and bring the heat down to medium high. Throw your vegetables, already cut, into the same pan with all of the good deliciousness of the beef and sweat them until they've just picked put the brown beef bits stuck to the pan (about 90 seconds...I think. This was a while ago...)

I like to boil some water and pour it into the CrockPot to sort of jump-start its warming.

Take your wine and pour it in the large skillet over your vegetables and scrape the bottom of the pan until you've gotten all of the goo-goos incorporated into what will be your stew. (The alcohol will cook off. Don't worry)

Empty the water out of the CrockPot, if you chose to do that, switch to high, and pour the contents of the pan into the slow cooker. Add your stock and throw in your bay leaves and other seasonings if you want to add something different (maybe some red pepper flakes to add a little spice)

If it looks like the stock or broth and wine don't cover your meat and vegetables, add some water. It will mostly evaporate but make sure it's covered so it all cooks and get's nice and soft.

That's pretty much it. After about 2 hours, or at a time of your choosing, turn to low on the CrockPot so it doesn't over cook. It should cook at least 4 hours or until the beef comes away from the bone and is very soft. I think mine cooked about 6-8 hours on low. The beef bone will release some gelatin and the stew will be very thick at room temperature.
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I made a bunch of stew...Too much. My roommate didn't eat any and the big batch went bad after a while in the fridge so EAT IT UP!! It's good for you! Well, S'pretty good for you...

The next night, I plopped down on the couch with my stew and a few pieces of grilled toast by myself in the cold living room. I grabbed a Snuggie and threw in a DVD (Amélie). As I worked my way through the stew, which was tremendously hot to begin with and of which a large portion ended up in my beard, I started to recognize some of the pieces of vegetables I'd cut the day before. It was like seeing someone with whom you have one single memory. It was a nice moment to feel a real connection with the food I had prepared and taken time to make right. It's really one of the easiest ways to feel satisfied with hard work. It's like spending the day building a fence and the next day looking at the fence and seeing every detail that brings back a memory. 'There's the slat that has the uneven top when the saw got unplugged, but what a fence!' It's like that. But stew.

Merry Christmas everyone and look forward to more entries! I look forward to writing, cooking and eating them too.
-David