Sunday Support Group: TOP Stew For You

For the singletons amongst ye, the bachelors and bachelorettes, herewith a morselette for your delectation I will but seldom assay...a recipe, fer cripe's sake, that even non-cooks can cook. Generally I am aware that I should be giving no one cooking advice. This exception proves the rule as the saying has it.

After six months or so of scrupulous veganism, I started eating a little meat again in about mid-May; at first, about once a month. By late September or so I ramped that up to one serving a week.

That's plenty. Meat is not good for you. Well, it can be, but only if you're critically short of stored fat and/or starved for protein...which probably describes 99% of the individuals in the hunter-gatherer prehistory of humanity but might not describe as many as 1% of us modern-day Amurricuns.

Get back to the off-topic topic, Mike—step down from that soapbox before the mob drags you away and beats you to death with keto-friendly Slim-Jim Giant Smoked Meat Sticks™.

Here's what to do for TOP Stew: take half a red, orange, or yellow bell pepper and half a purple onion and chop them coarsely. Slice five or six white mushrooms. Then cut a four- or five-ounce tenderloin filet into stew-sized chunks. Throw it all in hot non-stick frying pan over medium-high or high heat with no oil and stir-fry for seven minutes. Season with plain old salt and pepper to taste, and Bob's yer uncle.

It will cook neatly in the moisture from the veggies and 'shrooms—you don't need to add oil or anything else. In fact, when the pan starts getting dry, that's when you know it's done.

If you like your meat a little less well done, wait till minute six or five on the countdown timer to throw it in.

This is about the simplest thing I've ever cooked—so simple, in fact, that I can do it. Fast and easy. I have it about once every two weeks. And it's delicious. (That's one thing meat is good for—yes it's bad for health, but it's savory.)

Even cleanup is simple. 

A once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence
I think this might literally be only the second recipe I've ever published on TOP*. The other one, for a 15-bean soup, was posted more than a decade ago!

So this might have to hold you till sometime after 2030. I do hope you have other sources for recipes.  :-)

À votre santé!

Mike

*UPDATE the next day: Not quite. There have been a few others. Suffice to say this channel is not the Galloping Gourmet!  :-)

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Luke: "Oh, whew. I was getting pretty tired of bean soup."

Moose: "Try this: 1 Tbsp cornstarch; 2 Tbsp Soy sauce (well, really, wheat-free Tamari); 1 Tbsp Asian fish sauce (Red Boat is great!); 1/2 Tsp Sriracha or so, or anything you like to add just a little flavor. It's not about hot. A little Worcester sauce doesn't hurt, either. 1/3 cup water. Mix into a slurry. When the food is almost done, pour into the pan and toss. The heat will thicken the cornstarch, making a wonderful sauce coating the other ingredients. (Eschew white 'shrooms. Go Crimini!) Consider making a double-size batch. After at least a night in the fridge, it will taste even better reheated."

Comments

[Roger Overall]

If I ate meat (I don't), and I were in striking distance of Ithaca (I live in Ireland), I'd love to try meat from Pete and Hilarie at Just a Few Acres farm.

They have a fabulous YouTube channel and shows what life is like as a small-scale meat farmers (beef, pork and chicken) today. They raise meat ethically and cleanly, as far as I can tell. They do so with love and passion too. I can only imagine their meat tastes like meat should.

[Jim Kofron]

Hahaha... Mike!!!!! I will admit to sneaking a tiny portion of Nancy's smoked salmon this weekend...

Along Moose's lines, I'll do a base sauce of soy, white wine (or vegetable stock), hoisin, chili-garlic sauce. Sometimes rice wine vinegar. Sometimes a dash of spicy ketchup. With cornstarch, it makes a versatile sauce. I'll often use it in a tofu/veggie stirfry.

Loving the shed updates. I think you're going to be very happy with the end result.

[Robert Johnston]

I will certainly try this.Thanks for the recipe Mike. I know I probably shouldn't say this but I am glad that you are taking on a little meat. Veganism comes with its own problems. https://news.sky.com/story/vegans-more-likely-to-break-bones-than-meat-eaters-study-finds-12139886

[CHRIS PISARRA]

In what universe is this a stew? A stir fry, yes. Stews are slow-cooked in liquid to soften tougher cuts of meat, not great meat quickly sauteed.

[Chris Gibbs]

Buy yourself an Instant Pot, they're the iPhone of cooking contraptions.

[Rob Campbell]

Mike, of course meat's not so good for you if you tend to eat it almost raw, as you suggest in your recipe: who knows what invisible stuff needs to be cooked dead before it's safe to consume!

I recommend thick bean and vegetable soups; easy to make and very filling, but can bring with them the hazard of extra gas. The same applies to frozen prawns that are easy to thaw and make a good bedfellow to rice, though prawns, too, can make their memory felt at later inconvenient moments that age makes more difficult to foresee and control. The worst bit, though, is the time that all cooking takes up, time better spent outdoors with a camera. It's my conviction that cooking has deprived me of many a photographic masterpiece: just this morning it was a toss-up between the two activities, and my stomach won.

[Fred Haynes]

I wasn’t going to ‘weigh-in’, but I saw a commentators line about not being bean soup, and had to laugh, and agree, double “whew”.
Your concoction did look good, and with meat,- and practical, one pan and easy clean up.
It’s none of my business, but I’m glad to see you stretching you diet limitations just a bit. I always thought your eating choices a bit austere, and not much fun. It shouldn’t be about nutrition and weight lose, although that’s important.
I look at it this way, food, like photography should be enjoyed and be fun!
Fred 😁

[Malcolm Leader]

My Doc says "Fat doesn't make you fat, sugar makes you fat. And you need some fat in your diet" Olive oil is my favorite.

[Phil]

One of the best meals I cooked for myself was a cheap roast in a small electric pressure cooker. I browned it good on all sides, added some water and onion flakes and started the pressure cooking. In a pressure cooker you can't see what is going on, so I just let it cook. Then it started to sound different so I turned it off and took the lid off, and the water was all gone but there was some fat from the meat, and the meat was perfect. I can still taste how good and tender it was.