What's Cooking

 

Now that I have more time to cook, I can make more meals that are "two step" efforts.  We had shrimp & chicken gumbo for dinner tonight.  The base was the stock I made using the shells from Friday's lobster dinner.  Last night, I made beef stew for our Super Bowl dinner, with buttermilk biscuits on the side.  There were enough biscuits to have with leftover stew and our gumbo too.  Gumbo is on the menu for lunch now!

 This was the beef stew.  It started with a $7 chuck roast.  Because it was slow-cooked, the cheap cut of meat was fine.  Had small potatoes that were selected to go with salmon on Saturday night, but we were too lazy after attending a party during the day, so I broiled the salmon and we took out cold sesame noodles from the Chinese take-out joint around the corner.  We had the noodles for lunch on Sunday too.  They are a cheap and easy splurge.

Here's a picture of the beef cooking at 150 degrees in a freezer bag with the Sous Vide.  I rubbed oil, salt & pepper with cumin on the meat before sealing it.  This was in the bath for three hours.  I drained out the liquid which resulted from the process and reserved it for the stew base.  Then we put the meat in the fridge over night.  That helps the collagen coagulate, which firms the meat but also keeps it tender.  It's a cooking/science thing I know I am not explaining well!

I started the stew base with a roux and then sauteed veggies in it.  Once the meat and stock were added, I put the pot into the oven at a really low temp and let it cook all day.  I made the biscuits about ten minutes before we were ready to eat.

Today we both had stew for lunch and there is one more serving left that TBG will probably eat tomorrow.  There is about a double serving of gumbo.  I also have more than half of a bag of shrimp left and a jar of stock.  We'll have another seafood based dinner with that this week.

Getting home earlier meant I could go out and get the shrimp for dinner after work and have enough time to prepare the meal and clean up the clutter in the kitchen.  The results were delicious!