Oven Stew

I really do enjoy cooking most of the time. I like to fix a nice meal and have everyone ooh and ah and tell me how good it is. Of course, I have had my share of cooking failures. And I'm always looking for new recipes. About 10 years ago I cleaned out my file of recipes that I'd clipped from magazines or brought home from Relief Society. I knew I wouldn't live long enough to try all those recipes. Guess what, I've got a whole new file of recipes to try. I'm a compulsive recipe clipper. And I buy new cookbooks. The problem is that cooking is so daily. I wake up every morning asking myself what I will be fixing for dinner that night. I like things that I can start early in the day and are ready at 5 PM or meals that can be fixed in less than a half hour. I especially like meat that can be grilled. I've tried making monthly meal plans. Or even two weeks. Or one week. And for those of you who do that, I envy you. But I could never make it work. I used to think I was organizationally impaired. But that's too negative. Now I say that I like to be spontaneous and flexible. Anyway, I enjoy cooking, but I love Fridays when the cook (me) has the night off.
There are many variations of this oven stew, but I've been making this for thirty years. It is tried and true.

1 1/2 pounds stew beef
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, sliced 1/4 inch
2 potatoes, cubed
2 ribs celery, sliced 1/2 inch
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons tapioca
2-8 oz. cans tomato sauce
3 cups water
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
Mix all ingredients in a Dutch oven. Cover and bake at 275-300 degrees for 4-5 hours.

Review (Rachel)

I decided to write a quick post about the recipes I've tried from this blog:

Oreo Cake Balls

These were tasty, but I don't recommend making them unless you have a party or something. We had leftovers for a few weeks (had to toss the last of them). But if you have a large group, it's an impressive and easy treat.

Oh Mommy! Pork Tenderloin

This was delicious. But again, not for two people, unless you're okay with eating leftover tenderloin at lunch for about a week. I never cooked pork before, ever. At all. So this was new for me, and I made some big mistakes in the process, but I was able to save it in the end.

I had fresh ginger on hand, so I minced up some ginger--which I think made it a tad too gingery. So if I make it again, I'll add less ginger (if using fresh ginger). But this wasn't really a mistake, but more of taste preference.

Here are my rookie mistakes:

1. I forgot to spray the pan.
2. I was really dumb, and I dumped the marinade into the pan with the pork. The marinade burned, leaving a lovely black mess on my Pyrex.
3. After it had cooked for 25 minutes, a wide crevice straight down the middle showed that the insides were far from being cooked. Then I was like, oh, it's two pieces! Dur. I had taken the two tenderloins out of the plastic thinking it was just one big hunk of meat. So since I had to separate the pieces, I removed them from the burnt pan as well, and placed them in another (sprayed) pan to cook some more. It took about 20-25 more minutes to finish cooking. But! The end result was perfectly fine. Although the kitchen smelled like burnt marinade all night.

Lulu's Oven Stew

Since I've grown up eating this stew, I already knew it was delicious before I made it. Easy to make, and the leftovers are great.

Next up, I hope to make Ashley's Zucchini Fritters and Elise's Creamy Chicken Tortilla Soup.