Beef stew was WONDERFUL and super easy. This is my personal recipe that has been adapted from a recipe I pulled from Better Homes and Gardens before I got married (which is now over 10 years ago) called Ike's beef stew. However, I've since adapted it to our family's tastes and the ease of the crockpot.
Family Friendly Beef Stew
2 lbs beef roast on sale (I usually use a chuck roast) cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into rounds
5 large potatoes (I love Yukon gold, but any will do), washed and cut into 1 inch cubes
1 package button mushrooms, stems removed
3 Roma Tomatoes, diced
1 large onion, chopped
2 cartons beef stock(kitchen basics brand is the best)
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
Toss the first 6 ingredients into the crock pot. Then mix about 1 cup of the beef stock with the cornstarch and add that and the rest of the ingredients into the crock-pot. Simmer on low all day, or start on high and turn to low. Serve with crusty bread. The cornstarch will thicken the stock into a thinner gravy consistency. The tomatoes will cook down a bit and add some more flavor to the broth and the worcestershire sauce is MY secret ingredient to all gravy! Brian said this one of the best batches I have ever made, and it was quite good. I promise to add some pictures later when I figure out where I stashed the camera so the baby wouldn't play with it.
Caesar Spaghetti:
I also made the Caesar spaghetti last week from Rachel Ray's Look and Cook cookbook. It was rather good. It was rather a cross between carbonara and Caesar salad. A few things I did not like about it.... when I was cooking the anchovies, they broke up, but I could still see pieces of it. Next time I might use anchovy paste, because I really didn't like the look of the little pieces of it, though I'm the only one that noticed it. Also, cooking the escarole does NOT take that long, so start that only after the pasta has gone in and is almost ready. Ours was a little more wilted than I would have liked. We did add some pine nuts for a little crunch too. This recipe did have a great flavor and everyone liked it, though none of us ate a ton of it. The kids and I had just come back from a rather cold afternoon at the playground, and my mom sprung for hot chocolate and munchkins, so no one was very hungry(we also ate earlier than normal because Brian was home from work early... water main break at his office). I WOULD recommend this recipe, but if the anchovies would freak you out too, use some paste instead.
Pork Chops with Smooshy Apple Sauce:
Again, this was another recipe from Rachel Ray. It was a little sweet but pretty good. I also found that the apple sauce was not very cooked by the time the rest was done, so I took a potato masher to break it up a bit before serving. I experimented with this recipe and set a timer to see how long it took to make. It took me exactly 27 minutes from putting the water on to boil for my side dish of Orzo (I'll post that recipe next) to plating it up (another picture to follow later today). This time included about 7 minutes of searching for my brown sugar in the pantry(which had fallen off the shelf and was in a box someplace on the floor) and a bathroom break, so really, it would have taken less time. My kids liked it, but picked out the raisins, which they really don't like. However, with the sweetness and my pairing of the orzo, the entire meal was a bit sweet.
Here is the orzo recipe (which is really good, but because of the extra sweet apples, would have been better with something else).
1 1/2 cups of orzo, boiled in water according to package directions.
2 Tablespoons of Butter
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
Drain the pasta. Brown the butter in a skillet, add the cooked and drained orzo, cinnamon and nutmeg and toss until well coated. Easy peasy. In this case, I did indeed add some peas.
My son doused this in balsamic vinegar, which he does EVERYTHING, just to get the peas down... he hates peas. My daughters both loved this orzo. I think it does a better job accompanying other meals... next time i'd make this again, but use less brown sugar in the apple sauce.
I'll try to post later today about the chicken ragu and sausage cacciatore (also both wonderful). Tonight is shrimp scampi... however... that might change. I have discovered that this week is heavy on Italian and pasta(not well planned apparently) so some rearranging might be necessary.
In the meantime, I have found a VERY cool craft idea from another blogger related to monthly menu planning. If you have a set of recipes you like to use over and over again, this would make planning and grocery shopping QUITE easy. Someday I hope to create software that would do this for me (as I've not found a good set yet), but here is the link: http://theletter4.blogspot.com/2011/06/recipe-magnets.html
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