Beef Stew with Butternut Squash

 Beef Stew with Butternut Squash
Another one of those library finds, The Way We Cook: Recipes from the New American Kitchen

This seemed like just the thing to make for Paul on his return from Asia....I figured he has had his fill of fish and other ocean delights and will be ready for a beef/squash/pepper meal.  It does have rice in it, so he doesn't have to stop his Asian diet cold turkey! Stew is always better the next day, right?  So, if he isn't hungry when he gets home this should work for the next day/week as well. And our Wisconsin stew season is coming to an end as we're possibly getting to spring and lighter meals take over the menu.

I turned this into a slowcooker recipe by adding only 1 quart water to the slow cooker to the browned onion and meat mixture.  I had roasted the peppers and cut the squash a couple days prior to making this to assist in it coming together quickly.  I added the squash and rice when stopping home about 3pm...eating this around 7:30pm.  So, it probably isn't good for a day when no one is home to throw those ingredients in part way through the day.   Since the squash was cut, I measured the rice and oregano  before leaving in the morning so it took just a few seconds to throw it in....'cause that's all the time I have (time to let the dog out and change into Y clothes).

Let's see.  I adapted this recipe by putting the stew in the crockpot...and decreasing the water.  I decreased the beef a small bit too.  Also, I roasted a red bell pepper with the poblanos and added that.  They were on sale, so I bought a couple red peppers and thought the red would be a pretty addition to this stew.   I used an entire butternut squash which I suspect is more than a pound and cut the chunks a bit larger since I didn't want it to be too squishy after being in the crockpot. Oh, and I used brown rice. It needed a bit of salt and pepper at serving time...but it was tasty.

Sadly enough, as spring in the midwest can be, the day I made this was better suited to grilling than to serving stew; however, it still was cool enough outside that it was tasty.  It is a bit hard to eat stew when smelling neighbor's grills!  Ah, next week will probably bring different weather. I am starting to feel a cooking/planning slump coming on, so I'm hoping I can get out of it quickly!

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