Oops, I did it again (or Always Have a Backup Plan)

So, this week, we picked another recipe from the Slow Cooker Revolution.

It’s called Bachelor Beef Stew…probably the lowest maintenance recipe in the book. Frozen peas, baby carrots, frozen potatoes. They do recommend using beef tips instead of stew meat, which means you would have to cut up the meat. But you even use frozen chopped onions, so no crying! Canned broth, tomato paste, a little soy sauce to deepen the flavors. And you thicken the gravy with a couple of tablespoons of tapioca. Brilliant!

Simple, right? No possible way to screw it up, right?

I’m sure you’re not surprised when I say “Wrong!!”

I did cut a couple of corners…I used stew meat and I didn’t microcook the onions before I put them in the crock pot. Nor did I add the fresh thyme it called for (because I forgot to get some).

But otherwise I followed the recipe pretty much to the letter.

it’s supposed to cook for 9-11 hours on LOW. So Monday morning I put everything in the pot, turned it on and went to work.

When I got home about 10 hours later, the house smelled pretty good, but it wasn’t as fragrant as I expected. I went to check the pot and the meat at the top looked oddly not brown. Usually the stuff at the top gets a bit brown, at least around the edges. And the sauce hadn’t thickened like I’d expected.

Apparently that doesn’t happen when you set the cooker to KEEP WARM!

I was in a hurry, wasn’t paying close attention, and didn’t turn the crock pot to the right temperature.

It could have been worse, for sure. I could have turned it on high and come home to an incinerated mess (or the fire department hosing down my dinner). This, at least, could be salvaged.

I turned the temp up to HIGH so it would get really hot and make sure everything was cooked through. But we sure didn’t have it for dinner that night.

Thank goodness for the rice I’d made that morning and the frozen gyoza from Costco.

And with all that, it still tasted pretty darn good. The next night I got home, put it in a soup pot and let it heat to bubbling on top of the stove. I added the frozen peas, microwaved the frozen potatoes, stirred it all together and voila!

The gravy was dark and thick, the peas were bright and green, the meat was fall-apart tender. It really was a delicious meal. And it lasted us the rest of the week.

I also made some pumpkin bread last weekend using the pumpkins I roasted a couple of weeks ago. Our friend Carolyn had given us two sets of mini loaf pans before Gideon was born with the thought that we could make some quick breads in these handy, single-serving sizes and freeze them so we would have them after her was born and we didn’t have the time or energy to cook.

They really are great. They're the perfect size! I made a double recipe of the pumpkin bread which made 12 mini loaves. We have half the dozen in the freezer and have consumed all but one of the other half dozen over the last week. G loves it, which is great, because he is being very fussy about what he eats lately.

But that’s another story that will have to wait until such time as I am not falling asleep at the keyboard. T.G.I.F!

Thanks for stopping by, y’all. Have a great weekend and cook something fabulous for yourself!