Crockpot Beef Stew

I don't know if it's the colder weather (which if you haven't figured out yet, I LOVE IT), my new hair color (which I also now love), or PMS, but I'm feeling very philosophical, deep, and emotional (in a good way) today.  I love the chilly weather, the changing leaves, the start of the holiday season, and all the food that comes along with it. Chili, hotdish, hot chocolate, hot apple cider, beef stew.

What's not so great about fall is the lethargy and the want to do nothing but sit on the couch in my jammies and drink said drinks while watching Netflix.  I've always been a firm believer in eating what you want to eat, regardless of what society thinks or says.  If you want to eat a cookie, eat a cookie. Indulge and get yourself those dill pickle potato chips and ENJOY.  However, I've also noticed that the older I get, the harder it is to be in shape. So eat that cookie, but only one. Eat those potato chips, but no more than the recommended serving size. There is a point to this tangent and it's to show it's how I feel about all this great fall food as well.  Everything in moderation, including tater tot hotdish. Is it the healthiest? Not really, but I see nothing wrong with cooking with canned soup as long as you don't eat all the hotdish in one sitting.  Now on to the actual reason of this post. Beef Stew!

I've never been much of a beef stew gal but Andy is a "meat and potatoes" kind of guy so I like to make it once in a while for him.  What makes it even better is that I can just let it sit in a slow cooker and it'll cook itself.

Ingredients You'll Need: 

1 lb beef stew meat
5-6 small or medium red potatoes (I used 3 small and 3 medium)
1 packet beef stew mix
1 packet brown gravy mix1-12oz (1 1/2 cup) package of mixed vegetables, frozen
1 bay leaf
2 cups beef broth
1 cup water
corn starch, optional

First, wash your potatoes and chop into desired size and add to the slow cooker  I chopped mine into 2-3 inch chunks.

Then add the vegetables and beef stew meat to the slow cooker.  I cut some of the bigger chunks of meat into smaller chunks to try and make sure they'll all cook at the same rate.

In a large measuring cup I add the beef broth, water, beef stew, and gravy packets and stir to combine.

Then pour the mixture into the slow cooker with the beef, potatoes and vegetables. Mix well.  Add a bay leaf for a little extra flavor and cook on low for 4-6 hours, or until beef is cooked through and potatoes are tender.

I decided at the list minute to throw some chopped onion in there too.  I actually cooked on low for about 1 1/2 hours and got impatient (read: hungry) so I turned it up to high and cooked for an additional 2 hours. Here is where I whisked in a couple tablespoons of corn starch at the end to thicken up the stew. I've noticed that red potatoes take way longer than yellow potatoes to get soft, so next time I think I'll add the meat after letting everything else cook for an hour, hour and a half first.  I served the beef stew with biscuits and it was delicious and soul-warming.

Until next time, Fire Away!

Tater Tot Hotdish

Yes, tater tot hotdish does warrant two posts in one day. As a native Minnesotan, not only did I grow up on hotdish but I loved it!  We have to keep ourselves warm and comforted somehow during the long, long, cold, winters. Did I mention our winters are long?  I can't bring myself to do a whole heck of a lot of baking or cooking in the oven during the summer when it's hot but ah, Fall and Winter. I turn into Miss Susie Homemaker when it starts getting cold out.  I decorated for Halloween yesterday and I'm pretty sure I need to leave this up year round:

Caution:  Enter if you dare! 

Today I cleaned the kitchen, both bathrooms, and did some laundry.  Then I made some applesauce and now the tater tot hotdish is baking as I write this.

Ingredients You'll Need: 

1 lb ground beef

1/4 large onion, chopped. optional

1/2 tbsp minced garlic, optional

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

12-16 oz package of frozen mixed vegetables (I had a package of corn, green beans, carrots, and peas)

1 lb, 12 oz bag of tater tots (I used Ore-Ida extra crispy tots).  I had 2-3 oz left in the bag, so I didn't use it all.  I'm sure 1 lb exactly would be just fine too.

1 cup mild cheddar cheese, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Brown the beef with the onion and garlic; drain the fat.  I chose to add the onion and garlic to the beef because otherwise there's not much flavor to this dish without it, but it is optional. If you add the onion and garlic, you actually don't really need much more seasoning.  I didn't add anything else...not even salt. Add the beef to the bottom of a greased, 9x13 pan.

Next, layer the veggies (no need to thaw) on top of the beef. Canned vegetables would also work but I find frozen veggies to have more vibrant colors.  Or, you could even cut up your own fresh veggies if you're motivated enough.

Spread the two cans of cream of mushroom soup on top of the vegetables (3 cans if you want your hotdish really creamy).  DO NOT mix the soup with milk or water...just dump it out of the can onto the veggies in its glorious gelatinous state.

Here is where you can sprinkle shredded cheese (I chose mild cheddar) but it's not necessary! I just really love cheese.  You could use whatever cheese your little heart desires but because Andy is not a huge cheese person, I almost always choose mild cheddar.

Arrange the tots on top so there is one layer of tots covering everything.  You can place them one by one in an orderly fashion, or just dump them on top and squish them down to be one layer. Whatever floats your boat. I tried doing them one at a time so it'd look nicer and couldn't handle it after the first two, so I chose the dump & squish method instead.

Place in the oven and bake for 45-55 minutes, or until the tots are done and golden brown, and the hotdish is bubbling.  Take out of the oven and enjoy! Because I like cheese I sprinkled more cheese on top of my serving but again, the cheese is completely optional.

Mmmm those are some extra crispy tots!

SO good! 

Until next time, Fire Away! 

Homemade Applesauce

I don't know what it is about Fall, but it just really makes me want to make hotdish (I'm actually making tater tot hotdish for dinner...yum!) and bake. In my hope to use up the rest of the apples I had on hand, I was searching for apple recipes and came across homemade apple sauce recipes. I thought it'd be really easy to make homemade apple sauce (and it was) but oh my goodness, all the different recipes and variations I found was kind of overwhelming.  And to top it off, all the recipes were for different quantities of apples (6-8 pounds, 20 apples, etc) and I had maybe 7 I wanted to use up. I didn't find a recipe to follow so I decided to just wing it and hope it turned out. I will give credit to The Pioneer Woman for giving me the idea to use brown sugar instead of white.

Ingredients you will need:
7-8 small apples, cored, peeled, and sliced
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp ground cinnamon (use more or less depending on your taste)
4 oz (1/2 cup) apple juice (or apple cider, or water...just a liquid to soften the apples). I used Mott's 100% apple juice.

First, peel, core and slice the apples into eighth's.  Just like with the muffins, unless you have a tool to help you core and slice the apples (like an apple slicer) this is the most tedious part of the job.  I do not have an apple slicer or corer, so I had to do it all by hand.

Throw the apples in a large pot, add all the other ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, and juice), stir to combine, and then cover and cook on medium-high heat for 20-25 minutes, or until apples are nice and tender. Stir occassionally.  Keep an eye on your apples!!  The juice overflowed and made a big mess on our stove and I spent ONE HOUR last weekend just scrubbing the stove and the drip pans and everything so I was not happy this happened. You could just not cover it and let it simmer uncovered...I'd just add a little more liquid since some moisture does evaporate. I uncovered my apples and let them simmer the last 5-10 minutes so I didn't make a bigger mess and did lose some moisture. I think it worked out though...the apple sauce wasn't too liquidy or too thick. It was just right, Goldilocks.

I then transferred the apples to a bowl and tried to whisk it smooth but it wasn't working out too well so I then just put it all in a food processor and pureed for about 30 - 45 seconds.  It then became the perfect consistency and tasted great! It was still very hot though so we'll see how it tastes after it's been refrigerated.

Before pureeing

I consider this cooking experience a success! I'm pretty happy that I was able to create something without needing a recipe...I think that may be a sign I'm becoming more confident in my cooking and baking abilities and I love it! It's a shame tater tot hotdish is on tonight's menu...I do believe this applesauce would be amazing with the pork chops that are just hanging out in my freezer.

After pureeing...it looks like store-bought applesauce but it's not! 

Until next time, Fire Away!

Yummy Banana Bread

Okay, so if the bananas I buy make it long enough to become ripe enough for banana bread, the only thing I make with them is...you guessed it....banana bread.  And you know what? I don't even care because banana bread is deeeelicious and Andy loves it so it's a win-win.  I found the recipe at thefreshloaf.com. Wow! I didn't find a recipe on Pinterest! The majority the recipes I found on Pinterest did not seem this easy or required ingredients I don't always have on hand. Sour cream? Really?  Most of the time the dairy products go bad before we get through half of it. But I digress.

Ingredients you'll need: 
1/2 stick butter, softened (4 tbsp)
3 ripe bananas (I had one large, 2 medium bananas)
2/3 cup white, granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (not called for in the original recipe but in the words of Elle Woods, "it gives it a little something extra, dontcha think?")

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp  ground cinnamon, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Using a fork, spoon, potato masher, whatever you have on hand, squish the bananas until they're very mushy and not very chunky. Some chunks are okay but make sure they're small chunks.  I find the potato masher works great to get started and then use a fork to break up the smaller chunks my potato masher couldn't get.

Add the eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla to banana mush and mix the ingredients together.  I don't know what my issue has been with vanilla extract lately...the apple muffin recipe called for WAY too much in my opinion, and this recipe called for none, which is not okay either. Again, I digress.  Also, I did not wait for the butter to soften before adding it so

there were chunks of butter in my batter that didn't combine very well, but the bread still turned out amazing.

I mix all of the dry ingredients together in one bowl before adding them, and even though the original recipe says the cinnamon is optional, it is not. I think the cinnamon complements the sweetness of the bananas and sugar. So, it is not optional.

Add half of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until well-mixed, and then add the rest of the dry ingredients.  I find that doing half at a time doesn't' overwhelm my mixer and my kitchen doesn't get covered in flour.  If you want to stir in any ingredients like nuts or chocolate chips, do it now and stir until well-combined. Keep in mind that a little goes a long way. A half cup of chocolate chips may not seem like a lot in the batter, but when it's poured into the loaf plan it gets a little cozy.  I didn't add any extras this time.

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for 45-50 minutes.  Unless you've never baked anything before in your life (which is okay! we all had to start somewhere) it's done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a cooling rack for 5-10 minutes, and then remove the loaf from the pan and let cool some more. Eat it warm, or don't.  It's great fresh from the oven but it's also great the next day as part of your work lunch. I know from experience.

Until next time, Fire Away!

YUMMY!!