04 October 2013

Soup Weather on My Mind

I am trying really hard to stay on this blasted diet, even though it means I am cutting out almost all starches in an attempt to keep my blood sugar in the range that's approved by my OBGYN. I see him again on Monday, and I know he's going to be irritated that I have about a week of missing tests because I kept forgetting in between everything that happens when you have a LIFE (not to mention a toddler).

Tonight, I made beef and vegetable soup. I really wanted beef and barley, but I put half of the beef I bought in a freezer bag so I can make beef and barley soup once I'm cleared to eat grain again. In related news...only 8 more weeks! According to my handy pregnancy app, only 55 more days!

Anyway, the weather here has been seriously bipolar. We had a few days of really nice temperatures, but have since been fluctuating between "almost hot" and "almost chilly." It's done a real number on my sinuses, and BabyA and I have been walking balls of mucus every morning for the past week or so. To the casual listener, I'm sure our combined morning sneezing and hacking would indicate that we're dying of some awful disease. The sinus pressure makes me feel like a steaming pile of dog poo all day, so I've been trying to eat as much spicy food as possible (which isn't really a hardship since I crave spicy things while I'm pregnant anyway).

The cooler temperatures made me long for soup. Of course, the day I finally have everything I need and the time to make soup, the temperature is back to 90 and I'm cursing the fact that I live in a valley where autumn is basically nonexistent.

Tonight's dinner was the result of a craving and nicely embodied my desire to flip the bird to this awful central California weather. Plus, it was only 82 today.

Of course, I had almost none of the ingredients I needed to make the soup I wanted, so I carted my butt to Von's (I hate shopping at Von's) after going to the bank, cloth diaper store, and hair dresser. After taking advantage of the better quality produce and clearance meat (I refuse to buy full price meat at Von's), I headed home where I was greeted by an energetic BabyA who wanted to "brooos" my hair with her soft bristled brush (hello, frizz!) and a sullen The Husband who had been surviving without Internet for approximately an hour and a half. Trust me when I say that things only deteriorated in the following hours before the AT&T service guy showed up to fix our Internet.

While The Husband was trying to figure out the meaning of life without online games or Netflix and BabyA and Princess were facing a similar quandary (the Internet died in the middle of BabyA's viewing of "Stitch," her favorite movie, on Netflix), I started dinner and told the girls to *gasp* play with some of the thousands of dollars of toys that are in their bedroom.

I don't have a recipe for beef stew. I'm sure there's one someplace in my collection of cookbooks, but it's one of those things that lends itself nicely to being "thrown together." Of course, when you're in my kitchen on any given weeknight, chances are I'm just throwing things together and hoping they taste good.

I started with some beef stew meat. I typically buy a larger piece of meat and cut it myself, but the 3 lb package was on sale, and I knew I could get at least 2 dinners out of it. Side note: I always cut the pre-cut chunks a little smaller and more uniform so that it stretches a little farther.

I browned my stew meat with white onions, salt and pepper, and garlic powder in my 4 quart Dutch oven. Once the meat was browned, I added a quart of beef stock and a cube of beef bouillon and brought it to a simmer. Then, I added about 1.5 Tablespoons of tomato paste.

While my beef was browning, I peeled and chopped 4 large carrots, 4 medium potatoes, 4 large ribs of celery, and half a pound of button mushrooms. I added this to the broth and beef along with 2 bay leaves and a drained can of peas.

Then, I sat on my rear end and drank ice water while my girls brought me all of the delicious plastic food they were cooking up in their bedroom.

I let the whole mess simmer on the stove for about an hour. I added worchestershire sauce, tobasco, cayenne, nutmeg, garlic powder, and a little more S&P and let it simmer for a bit longer. Then, I turned off the burner and let it sit and thicken for about 30 more minutes.

In reality, I would have served it immediately, thickening be damned, but the stinking AT&T repairman hadn't yet left, and The Husband was busy following the repairman around like a curious watchdog. I tried to tell The Husband that I didn't think the repairman was going to steal any of our worthless junk, but The Husband gets really weird about having people in the house.

The result was marvelous.

The problem with making something so good, though, is that I end up having seconds. I haven't yet tested my glucose to see if that was okay...and I'm kind of procrastinating because I'm afraid of what the carrots and potatoes might do.

Right now, however, I'm a Rhett Butler kind of mood. If you don't know what that means, please do yourself a favor and read Gone With the Wind.

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