Cooking with Elli: Slow Cooker Beef Stew

As Elli's diaper pail can attest, she adores fruit. Ah-dores fruit. We've had to try a little harder to get her to like vegatables, however.

Well, depending on the vegatable, I should say. She's all about the peas, corn, cooked spinach, lima beans (oh, you read that correctly), and apparently raw green pepper (see "Colors of the Mexican Chip Casserole"). Everything else must be slathered in something. Sometimes I can get her to eat broccoli and cauliflower with a small side of ranch, a.k.a. "dip."

So, when I came across a recipe for slow cooker beef stew that called for carrots, onion and potatoes, I thought maybe the dip concept would translate well and this would be a great way to get some veggies in her.

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

2 pounds cubed beef stew meat 1 cup chopped onion 1 tbsp minced garlic 1 12 oz jars beef gravy 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce 1 lb small potatoes, cubed 1 1/2 cups baby carrots 2 cups frozen peas, thawed salt, pepper 2 tbsp oil

Season meat with salt and pepper to taste. Heat oil in skillet; brown meat; transfer to slow cooker. Stir remaining ingredients except peas into slow cooker. Cover; cook on high 4 1/2 hours or low for 9 hours. Add peas during last 10 minutes.

I found this recipe in a French's Classic Worcestershire Sauce ad in a coupon circular. I know that such recipes are nothing more than marketing gimmicks, but, seriously, some of the best recipes come from these gimmicks. The Family Recipe Box has a slew of them I've collected over the years. I was hoping to get the onion chopping over with before Elli noticed me cooking. No such luck. She came in a little more than halfway chattering about something, paused to investigate my activity, and then ran toward me. "Mommy, steps!" she insisted, and I paused in my chopping to go get the step ladder so she could help me. Though I was somewhat concerned, she did well with the onion. It was the potato I had to worry about. Raw potatoes, I learned, taste good to her.

"Is that potato good, Elli?"

"Dood tayto," she replied.

Before she could grab any more of the freshly cubed potato, I diverted her attention, which meant I would have to reverse the recipe's instructions to put the meat in first then then everything else. I put her to work transferring the onions and potatoes to the cooker.

She didn't drop a single one on the floor. It probably helped that we have a cooker large enough to be craddle. It offers an abundant target for a toddler. God bless Kitchen Aid.

Then I opened up the bag of baby carrots.

"Carrots, Elli," I said, showing her the bag.

"Tearrots," she said, pointing at them with her chubby little finger. "What color?" "Red." "Orange." "O-inge." "You know what eats carrots? Bunnies." "Bunny!" I showed her how to grab them out of the bag and put them in the cooker.

The raw carrots got nowhere near her mouth. And the foreshadowing was not lost on me.

Next we poured in the worcestershire sauce and beef gravy (the fat-free variety, I might add). This was Elli's first experience with gravy. Judging from her reaction to the taste, it won't be her last.

Yes, that is her licking the gravy off the inside of the lid.

I guess I shouldn't have expected her not to try gravy. She did, after all, just eat raw potato. Gravy is the next logical step. Understandably she protested when I took the lid away, so I made it up to her by saying, "We need to season the meat. See, here's the salt." "Sawt," she said. "Salt. We need to sprinkle the salt on the meat. Can you help me do that?" Together, we sprinkled the (sea) salt onto the meat cubes, followed by the pepper.

"Very good, Elli. Now we brown the meat in the pan. And as that cooks, lets stir up all this stuff in the cooker."

"Terr!"

Some may wonder looking at this picture why I had not yet wiped the gravy off Elli's face. Believe me, I had considered it. But mother's instinct is rarely wrong. As I returned to the meat, Elli returned to the gravy:

This is the point I encouraged her away from the cooker for a few minutes by asking her to please help me clean up. We wiped down the counter and she took the empty - and cleaned - gravy jars and lids to the trash. By the time she was done, so was the meat. I slid it into the cooker, stirred one last time, and showed Elli how to turn on the cooker. Ours is a programmable cooker, which means beeps and buttons, both of which attract Elli. I repeatedly had to pull her hands away from the buttons as we continued to clean up the counter. God bless Kitchen Aid.

After all this, did the beef stew trick work in getting Elli to eat her veggies? Had I remembered to put in the peas at the last-10-minute mark, I'm sure she would have eaten those. She did eat some potatoes, some onion and what I guessimate is the equivalent of half a carrot.

Baby steps.

Things Elli Could Do:

Transfer chopped onion, potatoes from cutting board to cooker
Pull carrots from bag and drop into cooker
Help pour sauce, gravy into cooker
Help rid the lid of surplus gravy
Help season meat
Help stir ingredients in cooker
Take trash to trash can
Help wipe down counter

Slow Cooker Beef Gravy Ratings (5 being the best) Elli-friendly cooking: 5 Elli-friendly eating: 3 (if only she liked veggies more) Simple: 5 Fast: 1 (a given for any recipe with "slow" in the name) Frugal: 5 (lots of hearty servings for the price)