a hot bowl of stew
Monday, October 1st, 2007
Recipe: beef stew
I think I caught a cold during the fall color shooting frenzy this weekend. As long as I got some good shots, it was worth the trouble. Sometimes travel can be delightful when you discover really good food – particularly cheap and delicious street food. But that stuff isn’t to be found in Colorado ski resorts where the mantra is to milk someone for every dime you can possibly dislodge from their pockets. I am constantly astonished whenever we get railroaded into eating in a ski resort village (which is rare). We pay far too much money for really pathetic quality. I think it’s a Colorado thing – they are located too close to the flats.
When we rolled into our driveway yesterday, I had two things on my mind: 1) nap and 2) beef stew. I had made a large pot of beef stew before we left for the weekend. I just didn’t want the beef going south on us during our trip and figured it would be nice to come home to a quick meal that only required some reheating. Couldn’t bring it in a cooler to nuke in our room because of the very bumpy dirt roads we were traveling. Trust me, I have experience driving in the field with a cooler full of foods that decided to unceremoniously merge in the back of the truck.
Back to the stew… I have a love affair with many foods, but it delights me to no end when you can take a cheap and tough cut of meat and transform it into the most tender and mouth-watering dish with some patient slow-cooking. And I think this is a dying art because people are short on time and short on the knowledge. This home-style food shows up on restaurant menus because no one does it themselves anymore. Sad, really. I bought a hunk of beef chuck and spent a good amount of time trimming the fat (they include a honking amount on these babies) while cutting into nice cubes. Kaweah sat not more than a foot away, watching devotedly and licking her chops every few minutes.
big cubes of beef chuck
