Cold Weather Preparedness

The temperatures are expected to dip below freezing tonight, so I harvested the remaining tomatoes and chile peppers. I also cut the rest of the basil as it would not survive the freeze. The tomatoes and chile peppers will stay in the garage as they continue to ripen off the vine. The basil is destined to become pesto, which ironically enough, will end up in the freezer.

The last of the season's warm weather crops. Good bye, summer.

The basil leaves are ready to be processed with Parmesan cheese, pecans, garlic, salt, red pepper flakes and olive oil.





Beautiful, nutty basil pesto.



I think it's time to cook dinner now.

The cold weather is just begging for a nice, hot beef stew.
Here we have cornstarch, salt, pepper, paprika, beef, bacon, Worcestershire sauce, red potatoes, tomato, homemade beef stock, allspice, carrots, onion, bay leaves, celery, sugar, thyme and garlic.

I always find that the beef stew meat from the grocery store is cut into too large of pieces.

There, much better. Each piece should be bite-size.

First I cut and cooked two slices of bacon and set that aside. One pound of beef is cooked in batches in the bacon drippings. Add more oil if needed.

I peeled and sliced two carrots, some onion and two celery stems. I also chopped up a tomato and three small red potatoes. The garlic is minced and two mushrooms that managed to avoid the photo shoot were cut into chunks.

After the meat has been browned and set aside, the veggies go into the pot with just a bit more olive oil so that they can saute a bit before the liquid is added to the mix.

Now the meat is added back to the pot. Two bay leaves, two stems of fresh thyme, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon sugar, a pinch of allspice and 1/4 teaspoon paprika and 2 cups of still-frozen beef stock are also added. More water can be added if needed.

The beef stew simmers for a couple of hours. Half an hour before serving, mix two tablespoons cornstarch with 1/4 cup cold water. Stir together and add a bit of the hot liquid to the slurry before adding that to the stew. Stir and allow the mixture to come to a brief boil before turning the heat back down to a bare simmer. Pull the bay leaves and the thyme sprigs out and discard.

I bought a nice loaf of Pane Bello (Italian for beautiful bread) that was made by a local bakehouse. Butter and jelly and some red seedless grapes round out this simple, but filling dinner.