Mom's Beef Stew

I was asked recently, "What is your favorite thing to cook?" After some consideration, I decided that it would have to be homemade soup or stew. I love putting on good music and getting into the slow rhythms of chopping and nibbling and measuring and simmering and tasting, etc. In a strange way, I feel very much "myself" when I am puttering around the kitchen and hovering over the stove.

I usually plan my meals for the week on Sundays or Mondays and this week I needed something to last me for the week with enough left over to share with a good friend who is having surgery in several days. I decided to make my mom's beef stew. This dish was staple in our home during all my growing up years and I have lots of warm memories of my family around the table eating this stew with some kind of homemade jumbo muffin!

Mom's Beef Stew

2 - 2 1/2 lbs stew meat
1 pkg mushroom, sliced
1 onion
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup butter
2 T Worcestershire sauce
32 oz beef broth
carrots
potatoes
garlic cloves, minced
seasoning
wine

- Saute mushrooms, onion and garlic. (My mom's recipe called for 2 garlic cloves. I used 4 today. Pretty much, use as many as you want depending on how you feel about garlic!) Remove from pan, saving the juices.
- Coat meat with flour and fry in juices and butter until browned. (I used tapioca starch instead of flour and it thickened my stew beautifully. I also used olive oil instead of butter).
- Also, I learned recently that the secret to nicely browned meat is to not crowd it in the pan. I browned my meat chunks in several batches so that none of the pieces were touching in the pan.
- Put the mushroom/onion/garlic mixture back into the pan with the meat. Add all other ingredients and enough water to just cover the meat and veggies. Simmer until the vegetables are tender, anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours (the longer you go, the more tender the meat will be). Stir often, as the stew will stick to the bottom of the pan.
- About 5 minutes before removing the stew from the heat, add a few splashes of sherry wine or red wine.
- I did not specify a quantity on the carrots or potatoes. Use as many as look good to you.
- I also did not specify the seasoning quantity. This is where you might get irritated with me as a cook. I just add what sounds good to me and keep tasting until it I get it right. In my batch today, I added somewhere around 1 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp white pepper, several shakes of italian seasoning and about 1/2 tsp of crushed rosemary.

One final thought, as I was eating this for dinner tonight, the thought came to me that just the tiniest bit of bacon added to this would be amazing. It would give the broth just a little bit of a smoky flavor. I would probably cook a couple pieces of bacon first and then cook the mushrooms/onions/garlic in a small portion of the grease and then finish off as usual. YUM!