Simple things are not always easy, but they bring happiness. Consider the Classic Beef Stew. Not pretentoius, it is like a loving hug from grandma. This bowl of unconditional joy should have basic elements you wont find from a can. First the meat should be tender and not dried out. The vegetables full of blended flavors but not mushy. But most of all the thick dark soup should taste like drinking a steak.
In the kitchens of our ancester's, we find a wood burning stove with a big pot slowly simmering on a back burner. Under a watchful eye, the lady of the home is quietly singing as she cleans and cuts vegetables she pulled from the ground. Being happy and singing in the kitchen always makes the food taste better!
So how do we achieve these tastes in our modern air conditioned homes on a short time budget? HaHaHa! Dedicate some time to enjoy this process. Enjoy the comforting as well as the comfort.
Ingredients:
Meat coating:
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
1½ teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 tsp each: all spice, thyme, rosemary, basil, sugar, salt
1-2lbs beef shank
2 lbs chuck roast cut into 2 inch chunks
1 large yellow onion, cut into chunks
Stew:
2 cups beef broth (low sodium)
2 cups water
1 pound red potatoes, unpeeled and cut into chunks
1 cup carrots, cut in 1 inch pieces
1 cup frozen peas
Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, smoked paprika, and all spice, thyme, rosemary, basil, sugar, salt. Set aside.
Select a good cut of beef ~~ never use a package of “stew meat” from the mega mart. I like to also enclude some meat on a bone like beef shanks. These will slow roast, breaking down their collegin and releasing flavor.
Cut the chuck roast into 2 inch hunks. Stir these and the shanks in the herbed mix. Place with onion in cast iron dutch oven.
Cover with foil then the lid. Check because you will probably have to use the losest rack in the oven. Now with the pot in the oven, turn it on to heat to 250 degrees. Walk away and get other things done for two hours!
Check the meat, it might need careful stiring so it doesn't stick to the bottom. Recover and let finish cooking for another two hours. There you have four hours of either goofing off or working while magic happens to the meat.
Carefully remove the meat and disgard the now empty bones. Cover.
Place the dutch oven on the burner and with a wooden spoon scrape any bits of browned meat off the bottom of the pot.This is pure wonderful flavor! It also makes clean-up much easier.
Let this cool for about an hour and skim the fat off the top of the liquid. Some cooks let it sit overnight.
Now to make the stew.
Add the potato and carrots to the cooking liquid. Reintroduce the beef*
*you will find there is plenty of meat, so use about a third of it, bag and freeze the rest for caseroles or stroganoff!
Add a cup of water. Bring to a boil – yes this will take time! Now reduce to a slight simmer and let the flavors marry for about an hour.
Taste test and adjust any seasonings.
To thicken I prefer to use a slury made of 3 Tbs cornstarch blended with ½ cup of beef broth. Make sure it is disolved and stir this into the simmering liquid a bit at a time until the right thicknes is achieved. It will work quickly.
At the last minute add the frozen peas!
Suprize: Take out a ladle of the hot broth and add 1 Tbs of dried cranberry! Throw in blender to liquify then add this to the stew. It will disepear but add a special touch! Also you might choose to add a Tbs of pickle juice. If you wish a darker stew, stir in ½ tsp instant coffee! It is amazing what tiny touches like these can do. Just taste, taste and taste again before serving!
Good time to make some cornbread muffins don't you think?
So honored to serve this to my Master Indy
socialslave
To satisfy and restore.
To nourish, support and maintain.
To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,
to nurture, assist, and sustain
…..I cook!
Please buy slave's cookbook:
The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White
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Judy Garland
On June 22nd, 1969, 50 years ago, we lost the great entertainer known as Judy Garland. It is said that her New York Funeral on Friday, Jun 27th added to the dynamic of the riot at Stonewall that night.
Now while the two main groups fighting that night, the drag queens were probably the most affected. Perhaps the street kids did not identify as much with the legend. Never the less the emotions were very high that day!
Born Francis Gumm on June 10, 1922, this little girl with the great big voice grew into one of the greatest entertainers of the twentieth century.
Garland began performing in vaudeville as a child with her two older sisters and was later signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. She was best remembered for her portrayal of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Appearing in more than 2 dozen films she was a box office powerhouse.
"The little girl with the leather lungs" was paired with Mickey Rooney in a series of films that defined an era.
Some of her greatest films included Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Harvey Girls (1946), Easter Parade (1948), and Summer Stock (1950).
Unbelievably during that time the studio bosses nearly destroyed the young actress with forced drugs and abuse over body image. It came to a head in 1950 and Garland was fired from MGM, after 15 years with the studio, amid a series of personal struggles and a suicide attempt. She was hospitalized for a “breakdown”.
In an effort to find work she started staging concerts. These were legendary in themselves breaking all kinds of records. Her radio performances and releasing eight studio albums returned her to the heights of stardom.
Her concert appearance at Carnegie Hall in 1961, was called by many "the greatest night in show business history". The two-record album Judy at Carnegie Hall was certified gold, charting for 95 weeks on Billboard, including 13 weeks at number one. It won four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Best Female Vocal of the Year.
Although her film career had diminished, two of Garland's most critically acclaimed performances came late in her career: she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in A Star Is Born (1954), which she co-produced! Also a nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961).
She hosted her own Emmy-nominated television series, The Judy Garland Show (1963–1964).
At age 39, Garland became the youngest and first female recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the film industry. In 1997, Garland was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 1999, the American Film Institute placed her among the 10 greatest female stars of classic American cinema.
Garland struggled with her physical and mental health from the time she was a teenager; her self-image was influenced and constantly criticized by film executives who believed that she was physically unattractive. Those same executives manipulated her onscreen physical appearance.
Into her adulthood, she was plagued by alcohol and substance abuse, as well as financial instability; she often owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes.
She made her last concert appearance in Copenhagen during March 1969. She married her fifth and final husband, nightclub manager Mickey Deans, at Chelsea Register Office, London, on March 15
On June 22, 1969, Deans found Garland dead in the bathroom of their rented mews house in Cadogan Lane, London; she was 47 years old. At the inquest, the coroner stated that the cause of death was "an incautious self-overdosage" of barbiturates; her blood contained the equivalent of 10 1.5-grain Seconal capsules. He stressed that the overdose had been unintentional and that no evidence suggested she had committed suicide.
Garland's autopsy showed no inflammation of the stomach lining and no drug residue in the stomach, which indicated that the drug had been ingested over a long period of time, rather than in a single dose. Her death certificate stated that her death had been "accidental". Garland's physician noted that a prescription of 25 barbiturate pills was found by her bedside half-empty and another bottle of 100 was still unopened.
Deans traveled with her remains to New York City on June 26, where an estimated 20,000 people lined up to pay their respects at the Campbell Funeral Chapel in Manhattan, which remained open all night long to accommodate the overflow crowd. On June 27, James Mason gave a eulogy at the funeral. "Judy's great gift," Mason said, "was that she could wring tears out of hearts of rock... She gave so richly and so generously, that there was no currency in which to repay her." The public and press were barred.
At the insistence of her children, Garland's remains were disinterred from Ferncliff Cemetery in January 2017 and re-interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Gay icon
Garland had a large fan base in the gay community and became a gay icon. Many reasons are given for her standing among gay men. Her ability as a performer, the way her personal struggles mirrored those of gay men in the United States during the height of her fame, and her value as a camp figure. In the 1960s, a reporter asked how she felt about having a large gay following. She replied, "I sing to people!"
For myself I offer this one fact:
At a time when the word “Homosexual” was not to be spoken, and you could be beaten to death for looking the wrong way in the bathroom, She sang this song and reached into the hearts of LGBT's everywhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEJneu2pvX8
decide for yourself!
A hero for a generation.
