Frank, we're waiting for your recipe. Are you still on vacation?
Since the primitives are back into active production of material for us to consume, this thread isn't needed any more to fill up dull Monday afternoons, but anyway, here it goes.
I've already described the meat I use--the eye, or heart, of sirloin, so as to avoid any fat (the cats get the thick trimmings)--and the potatoes, white, because they're easier to peel.
Being a man, I'm rather, uh,
schlamperei, in a
gemütlichkeit sort of way, rather casual and sloppy about measurements and ingredients.
In each 8-quart crockpot, on the lowest heat, I dump in a can of Campbell's tomato soup, a can of Del Monte tomato sauce, a can of Del Monte tomato paste, and if I happen to have it on hand, a can of Del Monte spaghetti sauce (the sauce
without mushrooms and peppers in it), and then add water.
The goal being a liquid with a little more thickness than water, but less thick than soup.
To fine-tune that, I use Heinz ketchup if it needs thickening, water if it needs thinning.
Lots of salt and pepper.
Then I leave it alone overnight, on that lowest heat. In the morning, I add the chopped-up white potatoes, and more salt and pepper, and some onion salt.
The goal being to get the potatoes cooked all the way through.
Sometime in the evening, I add the chopped-up sirloin, about as much meat as there are potatoes, a 50-50 thing.
Lots of salt and pepper, and more onion salt.
The next morning, I take bags of frozen vegetables (peas, corn, carrots, celery), and dump some of those in. Vegetables deteriorate rather quickly, so I put in only as much vegetables that might be consumed the first hour or so (the other ingredients last longer), meaning that I'm adding a handful of vegetables about an hour before each time the beef stew is served.
And now my secret.
When I moved to this house in the autumn of 2005, it'd been unoccupied the preceding 19 years. Its last inhabitant had been an ancient widow, daughter of the original settlers of the place. There was stuff still here, undisturbed, untouched, including two cupboards full of those old-fashioned tins of spices and herbs.
These tins were so old the address of the manufacturer was listed as New York 7, New York (rather than "New York City [zip code]"). No UPCs; made way before then. And price-stamped with the old-fashioned ink-stampers, 19 cents, 15 cents, 22 cents, 29 cents. The most common price was 19 cents, the highest one 39 cents for 6 ounces of poppyseed.
Just to be safe, all of those that had been opened and part of their contents used, I tossed out. Which left about half of the rest, never opened, never used.
So I began using them, these antique spices and herbs.
There's some that do
not belong in beef stew, such as cinnamon or anise or poppyseed, but not being familiar with spices and herbs overall, I go by smell. If its odor seems compatible with beef stew, I put a little tiny bit of it in the stew. Not much, just a little tiny bit. I imagine that out of about 20 tins, it amounts to circa half a teaspoon, combined, put into the 8-quart crockpot.
No one, but no one, has ever found fault with franksolich's beef stew.....despite the absence of onions, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, and whatever else. I think using 40- or 50-year-old spices and herbs adds something "special" to it.
