Cooking With Us - e34 - Beef Stew

With Avocado - coup de grace!

Over arugula, before adding avocado :)

Hi all!!

I know it's been a while, but we've had a heck of a lot going on lately!

Still, once I'd made this stew the first go round I knew it would be a perfect Cooking With Us post :D

The images you see show how it looked the first time, and the colors of the first attempt were just gorgeous!

^ Also from the first time!

So maybe Theron was right, and I added too many beans this go-round.

Woops!

Even still, it's a delicious treat, which (I'm guessing here) takes about 40 minutes to chop up everything for it if you're doing it on your own, and about 6 hours to cook in the slow cooker.

All the same, it's so worth it!

As always, watch hi-res, full screen, and Please Share and Subscribe!

And if you make it, let me know how it turns out! :)

The photo essay, recipe, and transcript follow.

Theron and Brigly joined me in the kitchen to start.

Brigly can't help much right now b/c he hurt his back badly a week ago :<

First, we start with 1 and 1/4 lb of stew meat, which we put into our slow cooker.

Then I added a can each of red and black beans - which honestly, was probably enough!

Next time!:)

Pouring beans, la la la :)

Then I cut up two zucchinis - nom!!

And changed my camera angle so you could see "what's cookin'!"

Then I used a little over half this red cabbage!

Nom Nom Cabbage!

And chopped up two large poblanos and threw them in!

Then, in went two large, chopped portobellos!

Then a whole red onion :)

Stir carefully because it's starting to get full!

I then chopped up one head of garlic.

I would probably have put in two if I didn't hate dealing with garlic skins ;)

In goes my roughly diced garlic!

Time to add two cans of original Rotel!

In you go! :)

Here's where I potentially went wrong: adding two more cans of beans!

Was it bad? No!

But it definitely didn't have the same beautiful color mixture as the last time.

Live and learn :)

"This is going to have to cook for a while and it's already 4:30PM...

I'm thinking we'll have this for dinner tomorrow."

Ready to add the lid and cook.
'Tis a thing of beauty!

Cooking on high, stirring every now and then, for ~6 hours.

Sunday was a fun day for us.

My husband was clearly in a silly mood.

But, we'd heated up our food and were ready for dinner!

I go along b/c I love it when he's being silly ;D

He said his arm looked big, so I said, "grrr! ;)"

But back to the task at hand:

I layer the bottom of our bowls with arugula while
Theron make sure the stew we're heating up on the stove is ready!

See?  Much darker than last time, but still delicious!

Top with fantastic avocado!

(You can also add crushed red pepper for more heat, and cheddar if you like!)

"First taste! Going down the hatch!"

Theron says, "mmm," and, "Excellent," and - of course - Make it!

I say, "HOT!"

Theron couldn't find any stew meat in his while mine was chock-full. 

Which was lucky for me b/c I LOVE IT!!!

It really doesn't get much healthier than this.
You have delicious beef stew meat, lots of veggies, yes lots of beans too,
and healthy fat from the avocado.
Cook it up! 

Let me know if you change something.

Oh, and apparently it was important for Theron to show my rain-cloud shirt.
Why do you think the clouds seem so indifferent?

Finally: my Youtube cover photo ;D

Toodles!
-Val!

Recipe:Into your slow cooker, add:
1.25 lbs stew meat from your deli
2 cans of beans: one red, one black (I added 2 of each, but I think one of each is better)

2 zucchinis - cut in discs, then in halves

1/2 or more red cabbage, chopped up

2 large poblanos, chopped

2-3 large portobellos, chopped

1 red onion

1-2 heads of garlic (I just did one b/c I'm lazy!)

2 cans of Rotel original (I added another later because I had put in, probably, too many beans;)

Now cover with your slow cooker lid, and cook on high for about 6 hours.

You can stir it occasionally (we did maybe 2 or 3 times)

When ready to serve:

Layer the bottom of your bowl with arugula (optional, I just love it).

Top with avocado, and enjoy!

Transcript:
Hi, and welcome to Cooking With Us - I know it's been a few months. Um... Obviously us is me,Theron, and Brigly...

Who hurt his back really badly the other day so... he's not gonna be helping too much right now.

Uh, we're gonna make a stew in our slow cooker.

It's gonna take about four to six hours, just depending on the meat.

And we got one and one quarter pound of stew meat from Meisfelds.

I wanted to make sure it was clean too..
Even though I cleaned it really well... I see...

I was gonna put this in first...

So we're gonna start with one can of black beans, and one can of red beans... And then maybe I'll add another can of each - probably.

This kind of mix this all together and make sure your meat's separated so it can all cook well together.

If you hear tumbling, that's the laundry in the background.

Now I'm gonna slice up these zucchinis into halves.

You can kind of see what we've got going on over here.

I'm gonna use about half of this red cabbage, chopped up.

Ok, now we've got two big poblanos I'm gonna cut up and just put em in there.

Last time I did three portabellos...

I might just do two this time cause they're expensive!

Do a red onion...

Now we have all of our red onion in there and we're gonna mix it up again...
See it's getting really full.

We're gonna do - garlic.

We're gonna start with one head.

Garlic!

Alright, I don't feel like cutting up another head of garlic, so I'm just gonna put in my two cans of Rotel original right now.

You have to mix it up really good.

Two more cans of beans, just because I like beans anyway...

And this is gonna have to cook for a long time... it's four thirty already, so...

mmm...

We'll see what happens.
We might it for dinner tomorrow.

We're gonna to-totally just put the lid on it.

The lid is now on...

And it will cook for a while.

Am I that much taller?

Than me?

Are you - you're standing on your tippy toes.

Yeah.

Why are you doing that?

Cause I wanna be headless...

No you can't do that.

Well why do you wanna do that?

Hi -

My arm looks strong too...

Oooh, well...  grrrrr.

Ok so it's Sunday, and this cooked last night for about five and a half hours.

We warmed it up for an hour and a half, on warm in here...

And we're heating it up in um.. a, a pot.. and what we're gonna do is - we're gonna serve it - I like to serve mine over arugula.

It is definitely hot enough.
Yeah.

And then we put um the stew inside of the bowls, which my husband will do now.

Yeah get a shot of the stew.

Look how delicious that looks!

And now we put the avocado on top.

I wasn't even hungry till I saw this.
Do you feel hungry now?
Yeah!

First bite! Going down the hatch!

mmmmm.

Here.

mmmm. Yeah it's excellent.

Make it?

Make it!

Hot...

It's really good, I don't know what you're complaining about.

No, maybe I needed to add another can of Rotel.

Maybe... but it's really good to me.

So?

Well, it's really good, it's healthy.

But?

Um... It seems like it's lacking in flavor to me.

Hm.

I have a lot more meat than you, by the way.

We'll see.

You gave me all the meat, see -
60i!?
Why are we recording in 60i?

I just hit record!

Ugh...This is gonna be a problem for Avid.

It's still really good. The meat is tender, it's delicious, it's very healthy, and I say cook it.

And let me know your variations.

And from all of us here at Casa Puppy Kitty...

It's raining...

It was raining today, actually, and that's why the clouds are sad.

Even though they're -
They're not sad -
making pretty colors.

They're not sad they're just indifferent.
You think?

Yeah, they look indifferent.
Oh.

But they're doing their job.

Ok

Toodle-doo.