Semi-homemade Saturday Stew

​

Today was one of those days when the weather was particularly nasty (freezing rain, followed by sleet, followed by snow) but we didn’t have much in the house in the way of food, so I had to get creative and start rummaging through the freezer.

I did have a few fresh vegetables--some carrots, a little celery, and a bunch of sliced mushrooms leftover from earlier in the week--and I always have frozen chopped onions and frozen peas on hand, so stew looked like a solid option. The only problem: all I could find in the way of protein was a bag of frozen cocktail meatballs from Trader Joe’s. Would those be a good substitute for the usual stew beef?

Yes. 1000 times yes. 

I threw everything into a crockpot with a container of beef broth and an envelope of instant brown gravy mix. When it comes to making gravy, I always make my own from scratch, because it's so easy and tastes so much better than the powdered version or from a jar . However, I've learned that a packet of instant gravy mix is a great way to add depth and richness to stews with very little effort, so I usually keep some in the pantry. Another great ingredient to add an extra layer of flavor: dry mustard, which I also added to the stew. Whenver I feel like a dish needs just a little "sumthin sumthin", a teaspoon of dry mustard adds that savory, umami note that was missing.

I set the crockpot to high for a couple of hours, just to get everything up to temperature, since there was a mix of frozen and fresh ingredients, and then I bumped it down to low for a couple more hours. I like my stew on the thicker side, so I melted 1/4 cup of butter and 1/4 cup of flour in a sauce pan, whisked it up and added that to the stew a few minutes before we were ready to eat, which made it the perfect consistency for serving over noodles. I also made some sourdough biscuits for dipping, using discard from my starter.  It ended up being a hearty, delicious meal, thrown together with ingredients we already had on hand. And just like that, I feel like I could win an episode of Chopped.