How I make beef stew

How I make my beef stew --

- the meat - What cut of meat I buy varies.  Sometimes I buy beef stew meat.  Sometimes I will buy a roast and cut it up.  Or maybe a nice tenderized steak.  The last time I made beef stew, I bought tenderized beef stew meat from my local IGA.

- the veggies - I use potatoes and carrots.  No onions or garlic, as we just don't like those.

And now for the recipe, which has a tendency to change every time I make beef stew.

-- JD's beef stew --

1-1/2 to 2 pounds of beef, cut into bite size cubes
potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 lb. bag of baby carrots (the already peeled and ready to eat kind)
flour
1 can of diced tomatoes
canola oil
2 packets of Swanson Flavor Boost chicken concentrated broth
malt vinegar
curry powder
turmeric
salt and pepper
bottled spring water

Take a large stock pot and put it on the stove.  Put some canola oil in the bottom, but not too much; and turn it on low heat.  Add the beef, and cook till beef has changed color from pink.  Then add about 2-3 heaping tablespoons of flour, and stir until flour has mixed in with beef and juices to make a thick gravy like sauce with the beef.

Then add the can of diced tomatoes, juice and all.  Then add the carrots and potatoes.  Add as many in whatever proportions that you like.  We like the potatoes more than the carrots, so I add more potatoes.  I like using the bags of baby carrots because they are already peeled and ready to dump in the pot.  They also seem to cook up with a very good flavor.

Next add your 2 packets of the concentrated broth.  If you can't find this, just use a can of your favorite chicken broth, and just add less extra water later.  Next come the seasonings.  I use whatever strikes me to use.  I most always use curry powder, and turmeric, and salt and pepper.  You can use liquid seasonings like:  different kinds of vinegars (just don't add too much), mustard, ketchup, steak sauce, barbecue sauce, etc.  Sometimes I have added a bit of ground sage.  It varies from time to time.  Think about what seasonings that you like best and use those.  But season in moderation!  It is very easy to add a bit more.  But when you have added too much, there is no way to take it out.  With my dry seasonings, I only use 1/8 to1/4 a teaspoon at a time; just a dash, but I hardly ever measure.  With my liquid seasonings, I hardly ever measure those either; but I will usually use between 1 teaspoon to 2-3 tablespoons, depending on what it is.

Now comes the water.  When I cook, I use the same bottled spring water that I buy to drink.  I have discovered that the bottled spring water gives my food a much fresher, better flavor than tap water does.  Never cook with tap water!  Sometimes my tap water smells like it was dipped out of a swimming pool.  And who wants their food to taste like a swimming pool?  Both purified water and spring water can be easily found, and is relatively inexpensive; and using it will make your food taste so much better.  You see, I grew up using well water, rather than city water as we call it.  I have recently learned what a difference the water you use makes in the food that you cook.

Add only as much water as you need to cover the potatoes.  You don't want to thin down the broth too much.  Now simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, until potatoes and carrots are done.

Serve it up with some nice baked biscuits or hot, toasted bread or rolls.   I made this stew for Christmas for us, and I got some store brand brown and serve rolls.  I spread a little margarine on top of them before I baked them, and they were great with the stew.  So your hot bread doesn't have to be fancy.

Hope you enjoy the recipe.

Happy cooking and delightful eating!

:)
-- jd --

Exploring cooking roots -- My mom's nobake cookie recipe and me

Hey yall!  So just how are you all doing?  This is the beginning of a new series of articles in my blog, exploring the cooking roots of people.  I mean, hey, exploring our roots has been with us since 1977, when the miniseries based on Alex Haley’s book, “Roots: The Saga of an American Family”, premiered on the ABC television network of stations.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roots_(TV_miniseries)

But your family tree roots and your cooking roots are two different things.  Your family tree roots involve who you are related to, starts with your parents, and works back from there.  However, your cooking roots involve who or what influenced your food tastes and cooking skills throughout your life.  One deals with people you are related to, while the other covers a wide range of people and places and things.

My family tree roots are something I grew up with, listening to different family members talk about.  For example, I had 3 ancestors who fought in the Civil War; and I had one ancestor that I know of who fought in the American Revolutionary War.  My roots on my father’s side trace back to England, and France I believe.  While on my mother’s side, because of her last name, I suspect that my roots may trace back to maybe German descent.  Now this is where my family roots and my cooking roots mix.  Because another thing that causes me to suspect that my family tree on my mother’s side has roots in Germany was her New Years Day tradition of making sauerkraut and sausage and black-eyed peas. 

Now that tells you something about my family tree roots.  But let’s get on to my cooking roots.  The bulk of my cooking roots begin with my mother’s kitchen, and enjoying the food she made; and also helping her prepare food for special occasions.  Another part of my cooking roots is the fact that as a kid, the only bean I would eat were green beans; and now I love all beans.  As a kid, I would pick the beans out of the chili my mom would make.  So a lot of the time she would make chili with rice instead of beans because I didn’t like beans.  Yet another part of my cooking roots involves the fact that I am from a small town in Kentucky.  So we could say that your cooking roots comprise of the cooks you were around, your personal food likes and dislikes, and the area you lived in.

Most of my cooking training came from my mom.  She was a really great cook who had a repertoire of dishes that she had no written recipe for.  These were what I call her ‘everyday food’.  They included dishes such as spaghetti, chili, soup, roast, vegetable dishes, and more.  I look forward, in future posts, to sharing my versions of these with all of you.  Another part of my cooking training came from the home economics classes I had in school.  Personally I think home economics classes are something that every guy and gal should take in high school.  I treasure mine, because they taught me more than I realized at the time. 

My time spent cooking with my mom mainly falls into two different cooking times:  getting ready for holidays and my time at home after high school.  You see, on pretty much all the holidays, either family was gathered at our house to eat or at a family member’s house to eat.  That was just how we celebrated the holidays, with getting together to eat and visit.  No matter whether it was at home or someone else’s house, my mom always cooked.  And when I got old enough, I started helping her with the holiday cooking. 

I always say that when I really learned how to cook was after high school.  When I graduated, I had plans to go to college, but couldn’t decide on what I wanted to take.  So after high school, I took a couple of years off, and spent them at home with mom and dad.  Now my dad worked second shift, and so the main meal of the day that my mom cooked was at noon.  With me there at home around the house, my mom put me to cooking the noon day meal.  This freed her up to do other things.  When I first started, she would have planned out what she wanted fixed and all the stuff for it.  She would tell me how to fix it, and she was always there around house to ask if I had any questions.  By the time I headed off to business college, I was planning the meals myself, and didn’t have to ask too many questions. 

Another thing that influenced my cooking roots was my karate classes that I took in my mid-twenties.  Now you are probably sitting there wondering how karate classes connect up with cooking.  As a result of the classes, I took an interest in oriental cooking; and explored it by way of checking out several books on oriental cooking from our local library.  One Christmas, mom and dad got me an electric wok, which I still have.  My dad just loved my stir-frys I made in it.  And my mom and I even tried our hand at making egg rolls one time.  They turned out pretty good as I remember. 

So all this brings us down to the recipes.  My mom enjoyed collecting recipes, as do I.  She kept her recipes in a kitchen drawer for a great many years, until I got a Macintosh Plus computer in the early 1980s.  Now her recipe collection consisted of bits and pieces of paper from newspapers and magazines, and some of the recipes were hand-written on pieces of paper by friends and family.  So after I got my computer, we came up with the idea to go thru the recipes, and I would type them all up and print them out.  So we sorted thru all of them together, and got rid of the ones which we couldn’t figure out why we had kept.  Then I sorted them all into categories and typed them all up, and printed out 2 copies of the recipes - one for me and one for my mom.  I still have mine, and I think one of my family now has my mom’s copy.  I look forward to sharing these recipes with you in upcoming articles; like my Aunt Lucy’s recipe for Candied Orange Peels, my Granny’s recipe for Butter Pie, and my mom’s recipe for Licking Good Salad.

But right now, I am going to share my favorite recipes that my mom made for me as a kid -- Oatmeal Nobake Cookies.  I think she originally got this recipe from a newspaper.  I still remember the scrap of paper the recipe was on.  Sometimes, if the mixture wasn’t cooked long enough, the cookies wouldn’t want to harden up; but I never cared.  I would rake them off the wax paper and eat them anyhow.  So here is my mom’s recipe for those cookies:

Oatmeal Nobake Cookies

2 c. white sugar

1/4 lb. margarine (1/2 cup or 1 stick of margarine)

1/2 cup milk

Mix in saucepan.  Boil one minute.  Remove from heat.  Add:

1 t. vanilla

2 T. cocoa

1/2 c. peanut butter

3 c. one-minute oats

Stir together, then drop by tablespoons on wax paper and let cool.   

It’s a really simple but very good recipe, and I hope you enjoy it.  And if you are hungry for no-bake oatmeal cookies, but don’t have the time to cook them, check in the deli of your local grocery store or Walmart.  Our local IGA carries the Lofthouse brand no-bake oatmeal cookies, which comes in peanut butter and peanut butter fudge. 

http://www.lofthousecookies.com/

I have also found chocolate no-bake cookies under the Walmart brand in the deli area of our local Walmart.  Both are quite good.

Hope you enjoyed reading about my cooking roots, and love sharing one of my favorite recipes with you all.  

Would you like to share your cooking roots and a favorite recipe with everyone too?  

If so, just drop me an email at:

rcandfood@yahoo.com  

-- and put roots as your subject.

Well that’s all for now.  Till next time,

Happy cooking and delightful eating!  

From my kitchen to yours.

My Thanksgiving spread

Well, for Thanksgiving, I am cooking just for 2 - hubby and me.  Here is what we are having:

beef roast, cooked on the stove in my stockpot,

- cooked with potatoes and carrots added the last hour;

- cooking juices thickened and cooked down to make gravy.

Layered Lettuce Salad

1/2 head lettuce, coarsely shredded

1 can water chestnuts, drained & chopped

1 c. celery, chopped

1 c. green pepper, chopped

1 - 17 oz. can Lesueur small peas - drained

1-1/2 c. mayonnaise

1-1/2 t. sugar

1 can bacon bits

1 c. shredded cheese

Layer in bowl as follows:  lettuce, water chestnuts, celery, green peppers, & peas.  Spread mayonnaise evenly over top.  Sprinkle with sugar, then cheese & bacon bits.  Cover tightly & chill for 8 hours or overnight.  This salad keeps well.

Note -- I substituted water chestnuts for 1 c. onions called for in the original recipe as we don't care for onions.  

jd’s bean and tomato casserole

2 cans of beans, your choice, drained and rinsed

1 can of whole kernel corn, drained

1 can of diced tomatoes in juice

approx. 1 cup of barbecue sauce

approx. 1/2 cup of tomato ketchup

1 t. balsamic vinegar, or your favorite vinegar

2-3 T. A1 sauce

1/8-1/4 t. curry powder

1/8-1/4 t. turmeric

1/8-1/4 t. paprika

1/2-1 cup of shredded cheese.

Mix all together and put in greased casserole dish.  Bake covered at 350 degrees (F) for 30-40 minutes.

-- note - This is a new casserole dish I thought up to use some canned goods that I had.  Hubby loves it!

dessert - Marie Callendar coconut creme pie and pumpkin pie

Hope you are having a great Thanksgiving!  

-- jd --

Baked ham recipe and coupon link too

South Suburban Savings alerted me to a great coupon that I just printed out:

$2 dollars off Kentucky Legend Ham
http://www.southsuburbansavings.com/2011/11/new-high-value-coupon-21-kentucky.html

These are great hams!  My mom bought and baked them for years and years.  They used to have a slightly different name, but for the life of me I can't remember it now. They are made right in my back yard of Owensboro, Kentucky.  I live in a small town just 30 minutes south of Owensboro.

But now that you have your coupon, what to do with the ham?  Well here is my mother's own recipe for baked ham.  This was one of her holiday staples that everyone loved, and ate up.  This post is dedicated to my mom, Freda Johnson; one of the most gifted cooks I ever knew, and I am lucky to have been taught by her.  She is gone now, but her food and her recipes live on.

So, without further adieu, here is my mom's recipe for baked ham as typed up by me.  This is one of those recipes that she had no written recipe for, but just made.  And she taught me how to make it, and I have written down her recipe.


Freda Johnson's Kentucky Baked Ham

1 fully-cooked ready-to-eat boneless ham
whole cloves
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 T. honey or molasses
1-2 T. orange juice
1 T. mustard

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and score ham, putting whole cloves on ham where scoring lines intersect (+).  Bake ham at 15 minutes per pound.  During last 30 minutes of baking time, add glaze.  Remove cloves before cutting and serving ham.  For a larger ham, you might want to double the glaze.  Also, adding a 2-3 T. water to bottom of roasting pan will help with clean-up, and make ham better.

Happy holidays from
--jd--

Making a 'make it up as I go' dish

Well today I am doing one of my favorite things to do in cooking - making one of my 'make it up as I go' dishes.  I had some shredded cheese I wanted to use up, and I had some canned veggies to use too.  So, I came up with an idea.

Here is what it has in it:

2 c. shell pasta cooked
approx. 12 slices of Velveeta cheese
approx. 1/2 cup shredded cheese
2 t. flour to thicken it a bit
1 can diced potatoes
1 can sliced carrots
2 cans of green beans
1 can of corn
1 small can of peas
1 T. mustard
2 T. ketchup
dashes of oregano, curry powder, chili powder, paprika, cumin, chicken bouillon, and turmeric
salt and pepper
crushed Ritz crackers

I cooked my pasta on the stovetop in 2 - 16.9 ounce bottles of water.  I use the bottled water we drink for my cooking now.  I find it gives the food a much better flavor.  I then added my bit of leftover shredded cheese, and then started adding cheese slices until I thought I had enough.  Then I dipped out approx. 3 or 4 tablespoons of the liquid into a small bowl and added the flour to it and stirred it until it was smooth, then I added it back to the pot.  Next I opened and drained all my cans of veggies, and added them to the pot.  Then I added my seasonings and stirred it well.  I preheated my oven to 375 degrees.  I had a couple of foil cake size (approx. 9 x13) pans, and I used one of them.  No washy the pan when it is empty.  And I greased the pan with a light coat of canola oil, then poured the mixture in and topped it with the crackers.  I baked it for 40 minutes.

And now it is out and cooling.  And the verdict is in -- it is good.

Here are some pics:

So there you are.  Hubby is going back for more, so I know it is good when he does that.  Now to give this new concoction a name:

J's Creamy Veggie Bake

So that is what happens when I tinker around in the kitchen with stuff I have.  The only things extra that I bought today to make this with were a can of corn and a extra pack of cheese slices.  Please note that this makes a big pan of casserole, so you will have plenty.  After it cools, you could spoon in into serving size freezer containers and freeze it up for later on.

Happy cooking and delightful eating!
-- jd --