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Yesterday I decided to try out a bread in a box recipe and needed something to go with it.  I thought stew would be good thing to go with it and was right.
 
The fellows helped me put it together since I’d just gotten home from a walk and my feet were sore so I didn’t want to stand too long.  Wasn’t that lovely of them?

How to toss it together.

First off .. make the bread.  I used a box from Sunset Gourmet called “Cheesy Garlic Beer Bread Mix”.  I made it using a strong ale that hubby said was getting a touch old.   This bread needs to sit for half hour before using.  It’s great for dips, soups and stews.

In the store, show the lad how to price out the cheaper cuts of beef since we’ll be making stew we don’t need fancy meat.   Let him pick out the right package and tell him GOOD JOB.

At home, ask hubby to cut up the beef into small pieces as you dice up 1 1/2 onions and three stalks of celery.  Dump it all in the stew pot.

Liberally add some salt and pepper.  Brown in a little touch of oil.

Get the lad to wash up some potatoes for dad to dice (I think he did three large), and then set him to shelling the garden fresh peas.

Meanwhile dig out the carrots from the fridge and dice them up.. ended up with about four large carrots.   

When Dad is done with the taters watch in amazement as he tosses in tons of different seasonings and then bumble around saying.. don’t we have a thickener of some sort I can throw in here?

Suggest three bay leaves to add to the pot as you dig through your stash of seasoning packages and find some dry chicken gravy mix to toss in.  Explaining to the lad that adding gravy will make it a stew instead of soup as stews are thick with less liquid.

Throw in a box of chicken bouillon/stock (the liquid stuff Campbells makes).. though if my rabbit stock had been thawed out I would have used that instead.  🙂

When it’s all in the pot look and say “oh, need a bit more celery” so do up two more stalks.

Discover a couple of tomatoes going soft so turn them into mush before adding to pot (saucing them before adding to the pot means a boy child not turned off by cooked tomato).   Dice up one orange bell pepper as well.

Let stew for two hours.

In end come up with a stuff slightly on the spicy side (oops.. forgot the sundried tomato mix has some chilis in it hun).   But realize the bread counteracts the spicyness quite nicely…so doing what I intended was an excellent choice with this stew.   The lad exclaims “Mom!   We need to make this again, it was good!!!”  

One of the things I love about stew is it comes out differently every single time, and when hubby and son help, makes it even better.  🙂

All told we put in
1 package of stir fry beef strips
four large carrots
1.5 onions
3 bay leaves
5 stalks celery
About a cup of green peas
3 large potatoes
a variety of seasonings : salt, pepper, sundried tomato, basil, oregano, garlic and more.
one box liquid bouillon/chicken stock
package of dry chicken gravy
about a tablespoon of corn starch
two tomatoes
touch of oil for browning

If you make it, tell me what seasonings you would use.  🙂

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