In my pantry today:
- 1lb beef stew meat
- 2 c fresh raspberries from your backyard
- 1 small can tomato sauce
- 1 14oz can petite diced tomatoes
- 1 14 oz can of corn, drained
- 1 14 oz can beef broth
- 1 packet au jus mix
- 1 packet onion gravy mix
- 1 packet chili seasoning
- 3 c frozen crowder peas
- 1 tbsp garlic paste
- 2 c water
- 1 c minced kale
- 3 tbsp diced onion
My apologies for another recipe with which I have personal ethical and medical concerns — but in this case, various gravy and seasoning mix packets saved it. Again. I’m talking to you, rescue chili. Why don’t I cotton to using many of these packets? Delicious, yes. Sodium content? Abhorrent. I might as well just call recipes that use more than one of these types of packets “salt soup.” A little salt soup is always called for before the game ends if there is need for thickening and/or flavor. This is ultimately what happened, and I am not proud. But dinner? Really, really tasty.
Start a frozen packet of beef stew in the crock pot on L with raspberries, garlic paste and beef broth. Upon coming back the next morning, the rest of the ingredients were added after the meat was found sufficiently flavored and back-of-a-teaspoon smashable. Once all the kids were in the pool, the crock pot was covered and left on L for another 6 hours.
When served, this soup was topped with minced kale leaves that had been massaged with a smidge of safflower oil and mixed with diced onion. It was an excellent dance of color and flavor… and then a terrible texturturous turn. Seeds. Raspberry seeds. Oh no, why didn’t I remember that fruit sometime had those? And why hadn’t the slow cooker made them any less like industrial gravel? So the raspberries that were meant to save the stew meat instead betrayed said stew. And me. And it was, for that, a shame upon my house. Without the spitoon rocks, this would easily have gotten 4 spoons.
I did learn that minced massaged kale and onions are a great meal topper, so isn’t that what really matters here?
Rags to Dishes 