Cook Can Spin Dye » stew http://www.cookcanspindye.com time-honored hobbies Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:13:26 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Canning Beef Stew http://www.cookcanspindye.com/posts/153 http://www.cookcanspindye.com/posts/153#comments Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:11:40 +0000 admin http://www.cookcanspindye.com/?p=153 With the weather being cold and crappy here in Chicago, there are many nights when I want dinner to be warm and comforting after trekking around outside in the snow.  I can think of no better dinner than beef stew with a side of fresh bread.  Admittedly, beef stew is somewhat a pain in the neck to make [...]]]> With the weather being cold and crappy here in Chicago, there are many nights when I want dinner to be warm and comforting after trekking around outside in the snow.  I can think of no better dinner than beef stew with a side of fresh bread.  Admittedly, beef stew is somewhat a pain in the neck to make individually with all of the steps that need to be taken to make it successfully.  However, canning beef stew is done in very large portions at one time, so it can be for several night’s worth of dinner.  One Saturday afternoon is worth the time and effort saved during the week in my opinion.  Below is the ingredients being ready for stewing.  I unfortunately don’t have pictures of the braising of the beef – I will make sure to take some the next time.  I love how colorful it looks!

The recipe that I use is from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving which if you are even halfway serious about canning, you should purchase.  Trust me, it was worth the 15 dollars.  I have used this book about twenty times now.

The best part is that I had leftover bones from the roasts so I was able to make beef broth, too!  This recipe is also out of the Ball canning book.

I can’t wait for dinner!

]]> http://www.cookcanspindye.com/posts/153/feed 0 Blanquette de Veau (Veal Stew) http://www.cookcanspindye.com/posts/138 http://www.cookcanspindye.com/posts/138#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:59:36 +0000 admin http://www.cookcanspindye.com/?p=138 Since my husband and I went to Paris two years ago, I have been in love with French cooking.  While we were there, I sorta ate my way through the city, though I thankfully didn’t gain any weight eating all of the rich foods and sauces.  Thanks to the internet I was able to recreate one [...]]]> Since my husband and I went to Paris two years ago, I have been in love with French cooking.  While we were there, I sorta ate my way through the city, though I thankfully didn’t gain any weight eating all of the rich foods and sauces.  Thanks to the internet I was able to recreate one of the sauces that I had while I was there: Blanquette de Veau or veal stew.

To explain this simply this sauce is a cream and egg yolk sauce with the main ingredient being the broth that is created from poaching the veal and vegetables for a couple of hours.  It is very tasty and can be done with beef and chicken, too!  The picture below is the veal and vegetables poaching with the bouquet garni (bag o’ herbs) smack in the middle.

My bouquet garni was celery, green onions, parsley, and thyme.  There are somewhat official recipes on how to make a bouquet garni but original idea behind them is that they would be made of the herbs found in the region of France where the meal was being prepared.  AKA, they used fresh herbs, whereas I used some that were dried.  Ideally, you want to use fresh but dried will work in a pinch.

I must say, the end product was very, very good!  I highly recommend more toast as it was the perfect and tasty tool to mop up the remaining sauce.

Se magnifique!

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