Bay What?

by | Food, Life, Recipes | 3 comments

Made stew tonight. Forgot the bay leaf. FORGOT THE BAY LEAF!!!

Forgot the freakin’ bay leaf.

But it was GOOD. In fact, I never would’ve known…if I hadn’t already known, that there was no bay leaf in the stew.

So what is a bay leaf anyway?  What magical flavor does it impart if I couldn’t even tell it was missing?

And since you asked (you were going to, you know) here is my recipe for beef stew.

Susan’s Beef Stew

  1. Shoot a cow. Remove a pound or two of stew meat. Do something with the rest so as not to be wasteful. Apologize to it’s mother and feel remorseful. Tell yourself you’ll go vegan in a few days. Then don’t do it.
  2. Coat the meat in flour. Brown over low heat with some olive oil. Feel absolutely no remorse for squeezing those little olives until they burst. They can’t feel anything…or can they? Tell yourself you’ll never eat olives again. Now get back to cooking.
  3. Remove meat from pan, add more olive oil and brown (not brown brown, just cook) a couple of chopped onions. When onions are nice and perfect the way you like them…
  4. throw in most of a small can, the little bitty size can, of tomato paste.
  5. and some beef broth.
  6. and some red wine. wine is good. add some more.
  7. add a handful of thyme leaves. some salt and fresh ground pepper. garlic powder because you forgot to chop garlic with the onion. DO NOT ADD BAY LEAF OR YOU WILL GO TO HELL (just kidding…)
  8. mix it all up, bring to a low boil and toss in the meat.
  9. set oven to simmer, partially cover and walk away. tell someone else to stir every 15 minutes while you go do something else.
  10. come back in a couple of hours. congratulate helpers for not burning the stew or the house. add some red potatoes and baby carrots.
  11. go away again but make sure the helpers are still on board.
  12. give it a half hour, forty minutes for the potatoes and carrots to cook. add a bag of frozen string beans because really, do you have the time to deal with fresh vegetables tonight? didn’t think so…  this is a good place for more wine. have a glass and/or dump some in the stew.
  13. start warning people dinner is ready in 10 minutes.
  14. tell mr. spouse he doesn’t need to watch the rest of the show on the history channel, we know who won that war.
  15. dish up. serve with sourdough baguette and butter. because there aren’t enough fat and carbs in the stew.
  16. eat it again tomorrow night.
  17. by the third night, add some more wine and broth. throw in some barley. call it soup.
Supper Outside the Box

Supper Outside the Box

by | Food, Recipes | 8 comments

Autumn is here, for sure. Mr. Spouse and I readied for the first winter type storm due to blow in sometime early in the week. He did the gutters, I raked pine needles and cleaned up down at the barn. Don’t need pictures of any of that, trust me. Grumpy husband, piles of pony poo. Really. Some things are best left to the imagination. Or better still, forgotten entirely.

After two hours of barn work I was hungry. And cold. And tired. And craving eggs and oatmeal. Go figure. By that time Mr. Spouse was on his way to the airport and Daughter Dearest, being an opportunistic self-feeder, had polished off the remains of the chicken in the fridge.

But I couldn’t have just eggs and oatmeal, right?  Even though I really wanted ’em. This was dinner. And what’s dinner without veggies? Don’t say breakfast–too easy.

chopped spinach

So while the oats were cooking–steel cut, by the way, solid substantial oats–I washed and chopped up some baby spinach. I’ve always got some in the fridge, kale too, because I loves me my greens. Look how pretty they are.

Oats

Then came the oats. And a little bit o’butter.

poached eggs

Couple of poached eggs.

chopped eggs

Chopped ’em up, mixed it all together. But wait–that’s when the lightbulb went off inside my head and I knew, I just knew what it needed–

dinner

Shredded Parmesan! Garlic powder! Salt and fresh ground pepper….

It was absolutely, positively, INSANELY delicious.

YAY!!!

 

 

[yumprint-recipe id=’3′]

Last Days of Summer

Last Days of Summer

by | Food, Life |

 

Summer ended last week. The calendar said so.But here it is nearly October and look what’s still growing fat on the vine.

October! These suckers should be shriveled up and long gone by now. Or filling up bear bellies. Just look at ’em.

blackberries in hand

LOOK AT THEM!!! Fat and juicy and about as sweet as they come. Here I am picking my breakfast. Note to Mr. Spouse: Some of us happen to LIKE blackberries. Some of us do NOT think they’re invasive pests!

blackberry rinse

A little rinse, just because…because it makes a good photo. I mean, look at that water. Wasn’t easy doing it one handed. Note to fans of The Office, especially Miss Daughter : No, I’m NOT going to say “That’s what she said.”

blackberries and yoghurt

Add some yoghurt and there it is–a bowl full of summer. Mmmmmm…better enjoy it while I can, weather’s supposed to change next week.