Stew (or how I threw stuff in the slowcooker and hoped for the best)

I’ve covered music, I’ve covered books and I’ve covered TV. Naturally, food is next on the list!

Between my roommate and I, the task of cooking usually falls to me. I enjoy cooking, so it’s never an issue. Plus, I hate doing dishes so it works out quite well! Between work, commuting and the gym, I don’t have as much time to cook as I did before so these days I’m relying heavily on my CrockPot. Last week, I slow-cooked a pork tenderloin for, oh, 22 hours and it was the most tender piece of meat I’d eaten in a long time. Needless to say, I was excited to use the slow cooker again!

It’s Canada and it’s the middle of December. So, while there isn’t any snow on the ground, the temperature is beginning to drop. And what better food to eat, in my mind, than a stew! I originally was going to make it last Saturday, but I got lazy. Then I was going to throw everything together Monday morning, but I woke up late, so I decided to make it for dinner today.

I threw the beef in the slow cooker with some gravy and the potatoes to slow cook over night. I was going to post a photo, but to be honest, it looked gross. I didn’t want to share it.

I had a whole plan: I was going to wake up early this morning to put the rest of the veggies in and let everything cook while I was out. I usually leave the house around 7:40 a.m. Today, of course, because I had stuff to do and a higher power decided I needed some more sleep, I didn’t wake up until 7:44 a.m. Already late, I ran to the kitchen in my sleep attire (thank heavens my roommate wasn’t home), ripped open the bag of veggies, dumped it in, added some pepper, stirred it and booked it back to the bedroom to get dressed and get going.

The final verdict: I was disappointed with the end result, despite my roommate and a friend saying it turned out fine, with the addition of some extra spices. I used pepper, onion powder and garlic powder to season the beef and again after adding gravy and potatoes, but I think most of that flavour was “burnt” off. I think it also would have been more flavourful had I made my own gravy, but hey – when you’re pressed for time, you do what you have to do! I’ll make it again, but changes are needed to make it meet my standards for my cooking.