Jackson Jambalaya

This post should demonstrate that I cook lots of stuff with no idea what I will have when the grub hits the table. Oh well, I don’t think never said I was an expert in this cooking stuff. If I did, I was lying to you good folks.

Butter beef is a nice dish, using some cut of beef, cooked with a fair amount of fat until it is very tender, with gravy, served over wide noodles (pasta), or mashed potatoes, or steamed white rice. 

It is a dish I started making one day last week, because I like gravy and tender beef, heavily seasoned, over some carbohydrate heavy base. (Disclaimer, My body is a temple and I do not eat like this every day, but no one wants to see a photo post of how to cut mixed greens from Kroger and combine them to make a salad, 

Or how to make a nice Caesar Salad with Salmon.

What I had when finished was something very different. Such are the well laid plans of most men and a few women. In my experience, I start with good intentions, consider all possibilities, carefully think out a plan, spend hours working out a beautiful blueprint, buy materials, carefully measure twice so I can cut once, strive with determination, work toward a goal, then get swimmy headed, forget the path to my destiny and find I have ended up at a blues joint south of Yazoo City in a town called Bentonia. 

Oh well, I like the blues, and hate complainers, 

so here is how my big meal for the week went.

To make butter beef my way, you will need:

Some cut of not so tender beef. I used top round steak, but have started with stew meat many times.
Some AP flour, to help thicken the gravy.
Seasoning – I like the flavor Lipton onion soup mix adds, plus a little black pepper and garlic salt
Butter. In this case 1/2 stick for half of the beef shown. The other half went into the freezer.
Two Tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce for flavor.
A crock pot, set on high for 4 hours
Three Tablespoons of water to make steam to get my cook going

All goes into the crock pot 

and four hours later, you will have fat heavy, very tender cooked portions of beef, very flavorful and suitable for serving over cooked pasta (Usually wide noodles), or mashed potatoes, or cooked white rice. I have also used this beef to top a nice baked potato.

So good, but not what I wound up cooking.

While looking at my beef, tender and simmering in a butter rich gravy, my mind turned toward another dish I am very fond of having form dinner and before I knew what I was doing, I had pulled some veggies out of the produce drawer of the fridge and was peeling. Once I had started, my path was set and there was no turning back.

Let’s drive this car wreck toward beef stew, since that is what was in my dinner dish when I finished my culinary trip.  

What I added to my fully cooked and tender butter beef:

Carrots, peeled and diced, celery cleaned and diced, onions, cut into large pieces, and red potatoes, mostly peeled and cut into spoon sized pieces.

Into the crock pot they went with the lid back in place and a nap in my future.

Oh, I also added some tomato paste for color and flavor.

I stirred everything together and added some salt and sugar, then started the slow cook.

Maybe three hours later, I was refreshed after nodding off in my recliner and this is what I found in my crock pot. Looks nice, but badly needed gravy for flavor, color and thickness,

so I browned some flour in a pan, until I had a medium dark roux, then added it to the pot. 

Our crock pot has a removable crock, so I transferred my dish to the oven at 335 for 45 minutes and watched TV until my stew was ready. A late dinner that night, thanks to my indecision as to what I was cooking, and leftovers the next day for lunch, after a nice walk in the early coolness of morning followed by a couple of hours of yard work and a shower to cool down from the 100 degree heat and whatever percent humidity is required ot make it feel like 106.

I’ll end this with a warning to try to avoid the heat I think will still be around for the next month.

Thanks for looking at my post.

God Bless You.