Thursday, April 09, 2009

Slow-cooked Beef...

I have a weakness for comfort food, especially slow-cooked meals.  There's a magic in cooking something on a low temperature for hours and hours.  The flavors soak in so deeply and the texture becomes soft and buttery.  One of my favorite meals to make is slow-cooked beef.  The most important ingredient for a successful batch is TIME.  Now that I work from home, the slow-cooker can be going all day (and night) without anything to worry about.  The only thing is that the aroma is utterly mouthwatering and can be a little distracting.  I generally serve the slow-cooked beef over egg noodles or soft-cooked polenta.  

12 comments:

Lorelei Eurto said...

yummm.

FunkyMonkey Girls said...

Oh yummy! Can I come over and eat some LOL!

Funky Monkey Girl,
Jolene

SueBeads said...

THAT looks amazing! Is there a recipe to share?

TesoriTrovati said...

Coincidentally, I am hosting the Easter shindig this year (and apparently going forward) and I am having a meat dilemma...how much to serve 23 people (mostly adults and mostly starving college students!). In addition to the small ham, I plan a turkey breast and a shredded beef slow cooked style. All from a local farm. Yum! I better get crackin! (Means no jewelry for me for a few days...:-(
Enjoy the day!
Erin

SummersStudio said...

Mouth watering, tummy grumbling....

Jean Hutter said...

Gee and I thought your jewelry was great - that looks wonderful - I want to make this! You are right about the aroma - mouth watering.

Betty BeadBug said...

Yum....I love my slow cooker! Pork roast does great in their too.

jennifer said...

Umm, great (ok, mediocre in my case) cooks think alike? Last week we made guiness-braised short ribs in over slow cooker served over polenta!

Jean Katherine Baldridge said...

Happy Easter, Andrew!
xox jean!

Michele said...

If you don't have a slow-cooker, the oven works just fine! I make 9-hour short ribs in the oven set at just 200 F. Brown them first in a pot on the stove, brown the usual chopped veg, put it all back in the pot with liquid of your choice (stock, wine, canned tomatoes or some combo) and put in the oven and do 9 hours of beading while it cooks. I know what you mean about the delicious aroma. When it's finished, I like to take the meat out and then puree the veg and liquid with an immersion blender to make a thick sauce.

RupaB said...

Hey Andrew...have you cooking with a pressure cooker? I love it and it gets used in my kitchen several times a week. I use it to make soups that use lentils or beans and even to make rice!

Andrew Thornton said...

Thanks everyone for your kind words.

Once I save up and get a couple of very essential photo editing programs and page layout software, I think I'm going to start making a cookbook. I don't think it'll be like a regular cookbook. It'll be mostly a story of my relationship with food told through recipes. I find that there are so many recipes that have such strong psychological ties... and each mark and each person in our lives goes with a recipe.

Like our lentil surpise dish for when I lived with Sheila, a cake for Azalea, or Slow cooked beef for Cynthia, or Pumpkin pie for grandma, mashed potatoes for my friend Jennifer, or fried fish for grandpa, or dirty rice and egg rolls for my mama, or fried chicken for my dad. Apple pie for when I moved to New York, sandwiches for when I worked at 'wichcraft, an assortment of cocktail beverages for when I was a bartender, pizza for when I was working for the newspaper.