12 November 2012

Stewed Weekend

This past weekend I made beef stew. More precisely, I made 2.5 beef stews. I bought one ton of stew meat at Costco (I was hungry) so decided I'd try three recipes. Stew 1 from a Paula Deen traditional recipe was ruined because all the liquid simmered away (due to crappy pot, not my fault at all), but I sliced the scorched parts off the meat and saved it.

Stew 2, also on Saturday (fortunately) was beef daube from Joy of Cooking, which I made because I remember Anthony Bourdain going on and on about daube in Kitchen Confidential. I made it in a good dutch oven and it turned out fine.

I set the rest of the meat to marinate overnight Saturday in preparation for making Stew 3 from an Ina Garten recipe Sunday. I also decalcified an old espresso maker, did laundry, dropped and shattered a plate full of leftover Stew 2 on the kitchen floor, cleaned the kitchen, got a couple of hours of yard work out of DS and a minute or two out of DH, read, and did the Saturday NYT crossword.

Sunday I had some nice espresso and made Stew 3, which was fine. A little sweet (as was also the case with Stew 2). More salt?

On the sewing front, I didn't do any. In fact, I guess I defied Karen's Apronalong by stewing all weekend without an apron. Sorry about that. But I almost sewed. I traced Vogue 8618 and cut it out of a nice, soft, double-sided knit (grey/cream) but can't count that as sewing because I didn't take a single stitch.
8618

So, all stewing no sewing.

8 comments:

  1. Tracing sounds like sewing to me, it's just prep work. You'd still say you were cooking if all you did was wash and chop vegetables, no?

    That's a whole lot of stew. Sorry to hear about the pot failure, that's pretty frustrating. As is the shattered plate of leftovers.

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    1. Pot failure was bad, but the upside is I need to shop for new cookware!

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  2. I agree - tracing a pattern is an important part of sewing, so is pressing, and of course, shopping for fabric and day-dreaming about what the next sewing project is going to be :-). Oh and my favorite: on the couch with a stack of Burda Style magazines and a bowl of popcorn!

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    1. Yes! And don't forget watching other people sew on YouTube!

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  3. Yea when I saw all the I did such and such description up there I knew it was going to end with no sewing though (which is probably a good thing in terms of Getting Things Done. I spend a lot more time tracing than I do sewing, i.e. while tracing I realise the lines of the style aren't what I'd like to wear after all XD If you can cook Metric, I would strongly suggest Gourmet Traveller. Best recipies evah (everything is from top chefs and expensive restaurants)!

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    1. Thanks for the tip! But you know, nobody in These United States of America can cook metric or, if they can, they won't admit it. :)

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  4. So maybe stew 4 was really sewing ideas?
    I've been drafting and not sewing too. And watching online sewing webcasts while I stew over a few new projects.
    I know - I should keep my day job:))

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  5. Cooking was achieved? sounds like a highly productive weekend to me :) And I'm impressed that you trace off Vogue patterns!

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