120. Easy Baked Stew

HOW EASY WAS IT?

I will get to that eventually, but do you want to know what is NOT easy?

Sleep.

Ah, elusive sleep.

Every night is a grab bag of GERD, insomnia, sleep sweats, racing thoughts, and existential dread.

There is a meme that says something akin to “if you need three or more pillows to go to sleep, you’re old.”

I’m all kinds of propped up and bent every night.

It’s less Liberator

and more Craftmatic Adjustable.

Yes, I know it’s just a fancy hospital bed, but is it wrong that I want one?

Look how happy and comfortable they are!

ANYWAY

I will now pivot to the actual point of this post which is the stew. I took notes, so we’ll just go with those.

I am going to admit that I made things less-easy by making my own spiced peaches.

I consulted this 1968 cookbook for a recipe.

I don’t know why I did this, but I decided to make my spiced peaches with fresh peaches. 

I had to boil the hell out of the peaches to slough off the skin. And since they were not canned with that sweet syrup, I added some maple syrup.

That being done and put in to the fridge to chill (I wasn’t doing this simultaneously), I moved onto the stew.

Expected time: 3 hours.

4pm: combine canned cream of celery soup, dry onion soup mix, and beef (reduced to 1 lb beef–will increase the amount of mushrooms).

Canned cream of celery soup is gross. It’s viscous celery salt.

I take a little taste and the base is mad-salty. So I add extra sherry.  I don’t know if this’ll help.

4:05pm: covered and into the oven for an hour.

It’s in the 80s out, but I’m aggressively pushing fall. I don’t care; I’m putting the oven on. [ed. note: made this is September]

Looking at the recipe, so far this stew is easier. NO browning of meat, no chopping and sauteing celery and onions.

Just waiting for an hour to pass…

5pm I reduce the heat and am going to take the time for vegetable prep. The card says “six carrots.” No other directions. In the photo they look to be rather large pieces. I have 4 carrots and just go with that. I have extra mushrooms, so those will go in, too.

6pm another hour in. I add the veggies and the stew is DRY. I don’t think that the extra pound and a half of meat (remember, I halved the beef) would have made any difference. Add extra chicken broth.

6:05pm time for the Sesame Butter Strips. Again, cutting the recipe in half.

I have no inkling what these are supposed to look like or taste like. But they don’t look great.

6:45 the carrots are still tough. So I’ll take the lid off and up the temp again because it seems that my oven temp dropped in the last hour.

7pm Stew out of oven and Dinner is Served!

Ugh. The time and effort into the sesame strips was a waste. They were stupid. They tasted like nothing and were dry as fuck. Time would be better spent making Bisquick biscuits.

The stew is okay. I don’t like stew to begin with. However, the meat is very tender. And I didn’t have to do veg prep and cook celery and onion, so I appreciated the “easy” part of Easy Baked Stew.

The peaches were great! When I prepared it I added some maple syrup, so it had a great sweet and tart thing going on. And the texture was fabulous–I guess because I had to boil them for so long to get the skin off and then cooked them in the syrup.

So, stew easy but meh. Peaches, not easy but tasty.

Would not make any of these again.

If you are curious about the pie in my photo, it was my pieathalon entry last year.

Check it out: Borden Candy Apple-Cheese Pie It is a weird recipe that is worth a try.