HOLY SHIT IT’S COLD.

Excuse my French, but it is extremely cold in Canada right now and all I want to do is stay at home and make comfort food. Luckily I started this blog so I have someone to share my food fun with. If you take a picture of food but there is no one there to see it, did you really take a picture? THINK ABOUT IT.

Because I live in Toronto and don’t have a car, I walk everywhere to get my groceries. I suppose I could take the TTC but I’ll be damned if I spend $6 round trip getting to and from the grocery store. That’s cheese money! I call this blog post “Things I found in my fridge/cupboard and the joys of slow cookers and crockpots.” Sure, I got a few things at Shoppers Drug Mart and the overpriced market down the street, but I was not prepared to do any major shopping trips in this weather.

After it pissed rain saturday evening and became a skating rink by night, I knew that I wanted to make a stew to warm my ice cold hands and heart. (just kidding, I have so much warmth it my heart…sometimes…) Luckily I had bought and froze some stewing beef last week. Whether you’re making it in a pot, dutch oven or slow cooker, stew is one of the easiest and most delicious things a person can make. To quote Carl Weathers from Arrested Development: “You take this home, throw it in a pot, add some broth, a potato… baby you got a stew going!”

Carl is absolutely right. I browned my meat in a dutch oven on the stove, added chopped onion and garlic, salt pepper, chicken broth(because that’s what I had), de-alcoholized red wine(because I’m not drinking for the month of January so I bought this fake wine and it’s not terrible but it’s definitely not a delicious glass of Cabernet Sauvignon either), can of diced tomatoes, dried thyme. I put the lid on and cooked it for 2 hrs at 350. Then I added pieces of carrot, mushrooms and baby potatoes and let it cook for another hour. Serve with crusty bread and de-alcoholized Carl Jung white wine(much better than the red!) and BOOM. A dinner fit for kings…or Carl’s! There are hundreds of stew recipes. It’s basically meat+cooking liquid+root veg=stew. Make it your own.