Tonight's Dinner: December 4, 2012

I had a seminar to go to near my parent's house today so I brought over all of my food and dropped off Emmy to stay with my Mom in the morning.  When I got back, I quickly worked on getting veggies cut up for our beef stew and then took Emmy for another run before the rain really did set in.  I was kind of hoping that it would already be raining so that I could talk myself out of running, but it wasn't so I felt guilty. We only ran another 3.6 miles, but I swear it felt much further and was disappointed when I mapped out our route.  I'm quite sore today and dreamt that I ran another 10k because the soreness was setting in.

I overstuffed this pot so my mom switched everything over to our really large
pot while I was on my run.  I first seared the chunked beef then added, turnips,
parsnips, mushrooms, sweet peppers, tomatoes, Italian flat leaf parsley, kale,
cut up pieces of last night's roast, and a box of chicken stock.  When I got back
from the run, I added the left over potatoes, peppers, mushrooms, and turnips.
I also added in 3 teaspoons of cornstarch pre-mixed with some broth in a bowl
to help thicken up the soup.  I've heard that this is an Asian thing as most people
make a rue.  Cornstarch is much faster and doesn't require any butter.  I only gave
 the meat a few pinches of salt to season, but with the chicken stock and all of the
different vegetables, I didn't need to add any more seasoning. 

My Dad, the ultimate critic, even seemed to like the stew.  It was healthy and
hearty.   I let the stew cook down for a total of two hours.  By the time we were
ready to eat, the turnips and parsnips had melted away into the broth.  This is
a great way to get kids to eat them.  The flavor is in the soup but they can't see
the chunks to ask, what's that? I don't want it.  On the other hand, if you like
turnips and parsnips like I do, don't cook it for so long and be gentle when
 stirring.  The meat was super tender though.