Beef Stew

Ok, I borrowed this recipe from Jamie that I work with. I tweaked it a little, but for the most part, I used this method.

• 5 to 7 lb chuck roast, I used about 3 lbs of stew meat that I purchased
• 6 to 8 oz of corn, I used a frozen bag
• 6 to 8 oz of peas, I used a frozen bag
• 12 to 16 oz of carrots, baby carrots work, but I like to cut mine up, it's good for the soul to chop
• 6 to 8 oz of fresh cut green beans, drained
• 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes with basil, oregano and garlic flavor. (My family doesn't really eat tomatoes, so I omitted these and just added the spices to the stew.)
• 1 large onion chopped
• 4-6 potatoes, peeled and cut into bite size pieces
• 1 beef stew seasoning packet, I took Jamie's advice and used McCormick's brand seasoning.
• 2 to 3 beef bullion cubes
• Garlic Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste
• 4-6 cups of water

I did this the easy way, I put the meat, the water, the bullion cubes, basil, oregano and garlic powder, carrots, onion and corn in the crock pot and set it to low for about 6 hours. I'm kind of picky about the consistency of my potatoes, so I boiled the potatoes for about 7 minutes and added them about 2 hours before dinner with the peas and beans. That way when it was ready, the potatoes were perfect and not over cooked. I also added one cup of cold water mixed with some flour when I added the potatoes to thicken up the soup. Thanks to my mom for that idea. (This required that I remove about a cup of soup from the crock pot.)

It was excellent stew for a cold day and it made a ton, so there will be lots of leftovers. You will need a large crock-pot to fit everything in, or you will need to reduce the water and meat portions. You can never have too many veggies!

Steak Stir Fry

I'm always looking for things to make cubed steak into. I don't particularly like cubed steak, I think it's tough and there's not a lot of things to do with it. Since we have Daddy's cows we have a lot of it though, so I've been experimenting. Here's one that turned out really well:

Cubed Steak (ours comes in packages of four)
Olive Oil
Assorted vegetables (I bought some "stir fry" veggies at Costco and don't particularly like them, fresh is better but the frozen are okay) I usually use a red pepper, pea pods, onion, broccoli, carrots, and water chesnuts
Season All for the steak
Kikkoman Stir Fry sauce (I used to make my own, this is better and easier)
Rice

Pour a little olive oil into the bottom of a wok and heat on medium. Cut the steak into thin strips and add to the oil. Let it cook while you cut up the veggies, stirring every once in awhile so it doesn't burn. Cook steak until it's no longer pink, you can drain some of the juice off of it if you want. I did and I probably drained more than I should have. Add the vegetables and continue cooking, stirring occasionally. When you think it's done add the sauce and let it simmer for a little while. The sauce is really strong, I thought it was too strong but Nancy and Dennis liked it. Probably wouldn't have been as strong if I hadn't drained off all the juice from the meat. Serve over rice. I forgot to make the rice when we had it, so we just ate the meat and veggies, but it turned out okay.