Beef Stew (kind of)

This is like a beef stew. It's really stewed beef. My kid calls it "that meat thing," which I guess is as good a description as anything. It's a big favorite. Not very cheap, sadly.

Ingredients:

• About a pound and a half of decent beef -- I use flank steak, or some cut like that
• One onion
• Three or four stalks of celery
• Several dried mushrooms, whatever kind you like
• One can of crushed tomatoes 
• One can of beef broth
• Spices -- I like fresh thyme and a bay leaf, pepper, and salt
• olive oil, or some other good oil

Cooking:

(1) Cut up the beef into small pieces, like half-inch to inch cubes, somewhere around there. When it's all cut up, brown it in some of the olive oil over a medium heat. When it's all brown, skim out the blood and gunk. Pour in the can of broth, lower heat a bit, and simmer while you work on the rest of the recipe. Stir every now and then.

(2) Dice the onion. Put it in a different 4 or 5 quart pan with a little olive oil and cook over a low to medium heat, stirring frequently.

(3) Meanwhile, wash and cut up the celery. Cut it up nice and fine. Put it in with the onions to cook.

(4) Break up your dried mushrooms, and pour a cup of boiling water over them. Let them steep a bit.

(5) Once your onions and your celery are nice and soft, add the can of crushed tomatoes. Stir.

(6) Add your spices. Stir some more.

(7) Add that beef & broth mix that's been simmering away all this time. Stir some more.

(8) Add the mushrooms and the water they've been steeping in. Stir some more.

(9) Cover and simmer for three or four hours.  Taste toward the end, and adjust spices. You can add some more pepper if you like it spicy! I like to add some of this as well, about 1/4 a cup, but it's imported and very pricey -- you don't have to use it.


Serve over rice.  Very high in protein, and very tasty! I never have leftovers when I make this.