Well, crockpots that is! To most people the crockpot represents time saved in the kitchen. For me, the crockpot represents less dishes to wash! Probably the only downside to the meal being cooked in the crockpot is for the homebased business mom, like myself, having to smell the delicious aroma of dinner cooking throughout the day.
This is our crockpot, one of two that we use; this one is the largest size we could find, made by Rival. You can easily cook for a 4-6 person family from our experience, it works great!
John’s Easy & Quick-Prep Crockpot Beef Stew
Today, before John left the house, he prepared a beef stew. John is one of those cooks who doesn’t really like to measure so much, and he seasons by his wrist, you know shake, shake, oh that’s enough! Something I could never get away with! He will take short cuts too, and this is a great one for beef stew; purchase one packet of Beef Stew Spices & Seasonings, John uses Lawry’s.
Beef & Seasoning Step
Lightly coat your 2 pounds of pre-chopped, tenderized stew meat with cornstarch. Cook the meat in your skillet with 2 Tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat until browned. (John loves to use his woks for everything it seems!) While this is cooking, add your seasoning mix and 2 cups of water to the crockpot and stir. When the meat is browned, carefully add it to the crockpot. (I’m not allowed to help as I will “get in the way”, gotta love that!)
Add the Veggies
In addition to my utmost appreciation, John also receives kitchen gadgets and gifts from me throughout the year. Here you see the wonderful IKEA wooden chopping board he has designated for vegetable chopping only. It’s beautiful and he really loves this gift. He uses it everyday to keep us well-fed!
So here he has chopped up a bag of those bunny carrots, you know the ones you toss in your kid’s lunch box, and some potatoes. I couldn’t tell you exactly how many potatoes as he chopped them before I counted! He’s mighty quick with that big knife. On another chopping board, a plastic one, he has chopped up one yellow onion too. It wasn’t as pretty, so I skipped taking a picture of it. You can tell my attention span in the kitchen is quite low.
Walk Away From The Crockpot For 1.5 Hours (do not add the veggies yet)
John sets the crockpot on “Low” and 1.5 hours later it is time to add the veggies. He placed the cut-up potatoes, carrots and onions on top of the meat. You could also add peas if you like. The crockpot now remains on low for the remainder of the cooking time, approximately 8.5 hours. I head back to my desk to work and await the stew aroma!
Dinner is ready! Salt and pepper to tase. Yummy!
I love the crockpot too but unfortunately we had to leave it in storage in St. Thomas when we moved back home to Dominica. It uses 110v and we use 240v in Dominica. Of course we could use a transformer but they pull a lot of electricity. I enjoyed this post. Thanks for sharing and thanks for the follow on twitter.