[theme music]
It's home school co-op
day for my oldest child,
Alex, and her best friend, Meg.
Every Friday they go to Tulsa to
a homeschool co-op and my best
friend, Hyacinth takes them.
Every single week she takes
them, stays with them all day,
and brings them home.
The last thing Hyacinth needs
is to worry about cooking dinner
every Friday night so I'm
going whip up some yummy beef
stew with cheddar cheese
grits for Hyacinth
and that way she won't have
to think about dinner at all.
I've got two pots
going because I'm
actually going to make
one for Hyacinth's
family and one for mine.
I'm going to brown
the meat first.
I got a chuck roast and
cut it into big cubs.
I actually haven't told Hyacinth
that I'm making dinner for her.
I'm just going to run in and
pick up Alex like I always do
and then spring dinner on
her at the last minute.
OK.
The meat's nice and brown
so I'm going to go ahead
and take it out of the pot.
It's by no means cooked.
It looks like it
is, but in the stew
it's going to simmer
for a couple of hours
and this chuck roast
gets so tender.
I'm going to add an
onion to each pot.
The pot is nice and
brown, it has a lot
of bits from the meat in there.
And then I'm going to add about
three cloves of chopped garlic
to eat pot.
All right.
Now I'll just stir the onions
and garlic around a bit.
The pots are so
hot they're almost
translucent already so
I really need to cook
them for about a minute.
So I'm just going
to take a break
and grab a couple of beers.
It's been a long day.
Just kidding.
I'm going to add the
beer to the stew.
This gives the stew
really great flavor.
So I'm just going to add
32 ounces of beef stock
to each pot.
Now to the pots I'm
just going to add
a few dashes of Worcestershire.
Worcestershire always
adds a nice savoriness,
a little bit of richness.
Then I'm just going to add
a little bit of tomato paste
to each pot.
It gives it a little
bit of a tang,
gives the sauce a
little bit of richness.
It's so good.
And I like to add paprika
to the stew, also.
It gives it a great
flavor but it also
kind of helps with the color.
And then I'll add a little
bit of sugar to each pot.
Now, the last thing I
need to do in this stage
is to add the meat into the pot.
So I'll just slide half
into this one and half
into this one.
OK.
And I'll just stir the meat in,
make sure it's all combined.
And then all I need to
do now is be patient.
I'm going to put
the lids on the pot,
turn the heat down, let the beef
stew simmer for about an hour
and a half, and then I'll put
the root vegetables in and let
it simmer until it's done.
And Hyacinth is
going to be so happy.
All right.
The beef stew has
been simmering away
for about an hour
and a half and now
it's time to add
in the vegetables.
I've got to tell you,
this smells so delicious.
I smell everything--
the beer, the broth.
Now, I've got two
carrots for each pot
and then I also have two
parsnips for each pot.
And then I have one turnip and
that's enough for both pots.
So about a half
a turnip per pot.
Now, I didn't want to add
these at the beginning
because the vegetables would
be pretty much disintegrated.
So this is the perfect
time to add them.
Let them simmer for
about 30 minutes
till the veggies
are nice and tender.
The last thing
I'm going to do is
thicken up the cooking
liquid a little bit.
I'll drizzle in some
beef stock into three
tablespoons of flour.
And I just want to make
a really, really smooth
pretty thin paste.
Now I'll just add a
little bit into each pot.
And then it's going
to keep bubbling just
for about 10 minutes
or so and it's
going to make the stew just
perfect and rich and thick.
I'm hungry.
