STAY ABED STEW

STAY ABED STEW

I once spent an entire day in bed reading a book. I sent husband off to work and children off to school, put a pot of stew in the oven and crawled back into bed. The book happened to be “The Firm” by John Grisham and I was firmly glued to it from start to finish.

When I finally turned the last page, the children were coming home from school and wondering why their mother was still in her nightgown and the bed was still unmade. But not to worry, dinner was in the oven and a good one it was, too. With a quick salad, a few slices of bread spread with garlic butter and set under the broiler for a minute and some stale cookies to round things out it wasn’t a bad dinner, after all. A quick sweep through the house and washing up of the breakfast dishes and it was all well and good. The original recipe for this stew was from an old cookbook called “The I Hate To Cook Book” by Peg Bracken. I have made a few changes to make it bit easier and, I think, improve the flavor. Give it a try.

STAYABED STEW

2 lbs. stew meat cut into small chunks

2 C. frozen peas

1 pkg. frozen sliced carrots

2 large potatoes, peeled and diced

1 pkg. dry onion soup

1 C. Heinz Ketchup *

1 pkg. Au Jus gravy mix

2 C. water

*I say Heinz Ketchup because my father worked for the H.J. Heinz Company for nearly 40 years and it was against the law in our house to use any other brand of ketchup. This law has carried over to my own home and I still buy nothing else but. I always buy the very largest size bottle that will fit in the fridge so I will have enough on hand to use in recipes like this one.

Just put everything together in a pot with a tight-fitting lid , put it in the oven on a low heat (275 degrees will work nicely) and leave it alone for 5 or 6 hours. All the vegetables will stew around in there together until they become very good friends and the flavors will all melt together until it becomes an incredibly beautiful brown color. I purposely left out the salt because there is plenty of salt in the dry onion soup and the gravy mix. You can salt it to taste after it finishes cooking, if you think it needs it.

Now a word here about stew meat: make sure you always have enough meat in a stew. Don’t scrimp and cut it back to a pound and a half or even a pound. Most men (and possibly even a few women) feel cheated when they eat a stew, anyway. They would much rather have a steak, a meatloaf or a pot roast for dinner. So as long as there is plenty of meat, they will tolerate it and sometimes will even request it on some cold winter nights. I like to serve stew with a dollop of sour cream on the top, but that is just my preference. It gives it a slight stroganoff-like taste. You can eat it plain or dress it up any way you like. Enjoy!