Tomato Beef Stew

Do you know when you go to make something and you forgot to buy an ingredient, or you don't have enough of something and decide to wing it and hope it turns out okay? Well that was what happened to me tonight. I threw around a few ideas, including chicken pot pie, but I decided I was too lazy to make crust and in general wanted a lazy dish. C asked for beef stew last week and so since I had some stew meat that needed to be used, I decided to comply since it worked to use the meat and allow me to be as lazy as possible.

I got everything chopped and the meat browned and all the veggies and water in This Recipe put into the pot... and then I went to grab the beef bouillon to throw in. I realized that we were out and all that I had was Chicken and Tomato Chicken bouillon. Since the recipe calls for water and I had already put that in, I couldn't just add beef stock because I knew the flavor would be too diluted. After some online encouragement to experiment, I decided to use the Tomato Chicken and see what happened. Because I wanted to somehow balance the flavors, I threw in a bay leaf, some garlic powder (because at this point I thought dried garlic was better than raw fresh garlic) and some chopped celery. Hours later, because I also kept getting distracted and let it cook for longer than planned, I finally tried m concoction. Well, it actually turned out pretty good! I like it and C agreed. Next time I might use homemade chicken stock and tomato stock instead of bouillon to cut down on all the sodium, and cooking some minced garlic with the onions, but I think I will be making this again.

It's a little mushy looking because I left it cooking a bit long, but it's tasty!

Tomato Beef Stew:

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons oil
1/2 medium-size onion, diced
1 pound chuck, cubed
3 carrots, cut into circles
3 large potatoes, cut into hearty chunks
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste (with the bouillon's salt content I didn't add any)
3 Tomato Chicken bouillon cubes (or equivallent powder)
2 heaping tablepoons flour

Procedures:

1. Heat oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Add onion, and sauté until translucent. Add beef, stirring, utill it's browned.

2. Add carrots, celery, potatoes, bay leaf, garlic powder and enough water to cover ingredients. Add bouillon. Cover, reduce heat to low, and let simmer until meat and vegetables are tender, about 1 1/2 hours.

3. Mix the flour with very hot water—just enough water to cover the flour by a little. I usually do this in a little resealable plastic container so I can mix it by shaking. Bring the stew to a boil, and pour the flour-water thickener in a little at a time until desired thickness is achieved.