I don’t let my babies cry.
Now, before you get all “oh, what a good mom,” or “whatever bitch, like you’re so much better than those of us who let our babies cry,” it’s not what you think. Of course I sympathize with their needs, and I want to be a good mom, and I agree with a lot of the attachment parenting philosophy, but mostly I don’t let my babies cry because its annoying as hell. It is much easier for me to just hold Matilda, or lie on the floor with her, or nurse her (again) than to listen to her fuss and cry because I left her in the jumper or on the floor to play while I do whatever task next to her.
To that end, cooking can be a challenge sometimes. I have learned to plan meals around happy times, when she’s excited to play in her jumper, and I have learned to orchestrate the preparation of my meals so that if (let’s be real, when) my daughter starts fussing, I can finish whatever parts of the recipe need to be completed while holding her.
Today was one such day. I woke up with no idea what I was going to cook. I knew I had to work that evening, and we had our homeschool meetup that morning/early afternoon, which meant I also had to pack lunches for me and Celaya. I don’t like to do a lot of cooking or cleaning while my kids nap because I like to use that time to rest myself, write, read, make an actual phone call, do all the things that I genuinely cannot do when my baby is awake, and that are still pretty challenging when my five year old is up and around. To that end, I cook and clean around my kids awake times, which usually involves me holding my baby and chatting with, or listening to the chattering of, my five year old. Then, when Matilda goes down for her nap, I set Celaya up on her iPad for some screen time. Ahhhhh! One to two hours of almost complete blissful silence.
Bliss.
So, I took some beef out of the freezer while I was waiting for my teapot to come to a boil so I could begin the steeping process in my french press (I still need to write my coffee snob piece.), thinking idly that I would do something with it once it mostly thawed before I went to work. Well, as per usual at homeschool day I got to chatting, gossiping, laughing, meeting new members, and yelling across the park to kids, and despite my best efforts to meet my “be home by this time” deadline, I escaped the park later than I had hoped to, sat in traffic I should have expected, but didn’t, and got in my house with just under an hour to prep a meal for the household dinner, pack my own dinner and snacks for work, pack my running clothes for a late night run outside my office, pack my breast pump equipment, make my coffee, AND do my afternoon reading with the girls before I left for work.
“I can do this.” I told myself.
In all honesty, there are days when I simply can’t. I don’t have the staples I want; I really don’t have the time; I don’t have the patience; the kids aren’t in the right mood for the exact right flow to work; whatever, sometimes, I just can’t, and the fam copes with leftovers, or one of the men (gasp!) cooks.
But today, I knew I could do it because I had just the right ingredients for my mom’s beef stew. Beef stew, in my family, is really just beef soup with a thin gravy instead of broth. And, also in my family, I can whip up a beef stew in 20 minutes. 20 freaking minutes. You just cannot beat that when you’re in a time crunch. I can also do most of the prep while holding my baby. Bonus! Plus, it’s filling, it has veggies and protein, and it always makes enough for leftovers.
And, as expected, Matilda put up with her jumper for just long enough to allow me to cut the beef, onions, and garlic,
at which point she started fussing,
and then I held her on one hip for the rest.
Next time you’re in a pinch, make this beef stew and tell me I don’t deserved to be worshipped, and tell me you weren’t worshipped for making it. (Remember, we’re queens; we deserve to be worshipped.) (Unless you’re a guy! I’m sure you’re awesome too! Fingers crossed.)
Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds of beef (I like to buy those packages of “stew meat.” You know the ones that have the giant chunks of beef already prepped for you? Thanks Costco and Trader Joe’s. You rock.)
2 to 3 pounds of baby potatoes (Again, I buy the bag of baby potatoes from Costco. It’s a great staple to have around and it almost never goes bad, plus they’re easy to deal with.)
1 small bag of baby carrots
1/2 yellow onion (they’re sweeter than the white ones.)
2 cloves of garlic (I’m a big fan of garlic, flavor- and health- wise.)
Tomato or beef stock (This one is dealer’s choice. I prefer beef stock, but I always have tomato stock on hand, so if I’m out of beef, I use tomato)
flour
olive oil
bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
optional:
32 oz. can of crushed tomatoes (I almost always add this, but I didn’t have a can today because I made both a red sauce pasta dish and homemade pizzas already this week, no more tomatoes until my next weekly trip to the store. I don’t do “quick runs” to the store unless I absolutely have to, you know, for like, wine or something else urgent.)
red wine (this is my own personal addition to this dish)
green beans (My mom never added green beans, I usually do, unless I don’t have them.)
Preparation:
Cut the beef into smaller chunks, usually in half or in quarters depending on how big the butcher cut them. You want big bite size pieces.
Set a big soup pot on the stove to medium to high heat and add olive oil, once around the pan.
Chop onion and garlic into teeny tiny pieces. (Remember, my brother hates onion, so I have to hide it.)
Add onion and garlic once the pan is hot, sautée until the onion and garlic are a little crispy on the edges, then add your beef. It should sizzle loudly. You want a good sear on your beef.
Cook the beef until brown but the juices are still in the pan.
While the beef is cooking cut all of your baby potatoes and baby carrots in half. Now all of your pieces, beef and veggies, are about the same size. (This is also where you would cut green beans into a similar size; I didn’t have any today, so no green beans for us.) Set veggies aside for now.
PS, this:
is why I cut the potatoes in half. Blech.
Now you’re going to make a roux.
Add two tablespoons of flour to the juices in the pan and stir. Your going to start forming a thick paste with the beef and onion and garlic and flour.
Once the paste is starting to crust and stick to the bottom of the pan, add about a half a cup of red wine; it adds great flavor and it will help you scrape the good crispy stuff off the bottom of the pan. Stir. The wine will bubble up and start to thicken in the flour as all the alcohol in the wine cooks off. (You can totally skip this step and go straight to adding the stock)
Add 4 cups of stock. I usually use bullion because it takes up so little space in my cabinet, it keeps forever, and it’s easy (in case you haven’t noticed, I’m all about easy), so I add four teaspoons of bullion to four cups of water and heat in the microwave while my beef is cooking, then add the stock to my wine and flour mixture. You want to add the stock gradually, stirring as you add a half cup at a time. This prevents your gravy from getting lumpy. By the time you’ve added all the stock, you should have a soup with a thick consistency. Now you can add your veggies, add a couple of bay leaves, and sprinkle some crushed red pepper in, et voila: stew!
I shit you not this took me 20 minutes tops, and the only thing I really can’t do with Matilda in my arms is cut the beef because, um, ew. But I can stir, I can cut the veggies in half, I can add, mix, and spin in the kitchen all while holding the baby.
I made this at 2:30 PM, put the pan on low, covered it with the lid allowing a little steam to escape, and left it for the fam to eat at dinner time. I got all of the rest of my stuff packed, nursed the baby one last time, read to the girls, and got ready to go: I dotted a little perfume behind my ears, slipped some big fat earrings in (that’s how I get ready for work), grabbed my stuff, and jammed out the door with time to spare.
Then this one came running out the door before I got to the elevator, yelling “mama! mama! wait! one more kiss.” Of course I waited. And while I waited for her to run to me, and then waited and watched while she ran all the way back home, I had time to snap some pics of little miss mendez.
Dinner was done, kids were kissed, and I was off to change the world in a different kind of way.
Try the stew! And if (when!) you do, please let me know what you think; did you add anything? Take anything away? Love it or hate it, I hope to hear from you!
P.S. If you like the jumper Matilda is sitting in in the picture above, you can click this link and get it, where I got it, from Amazon. If you do buy it, or anything else from Amazon through this link, I will get a commission from Amazon, so you will be supporting my writing and this site! I love the jumper; as I said, it keeps Matilda happy for long enough for me to get at least half of something done, and it will grow with her. I will not ever provide a link to something I would not personally recommend myself because I have used it and believe in it.