Yesterday, Saturday, I completed a half marathon. Long runs make me crave two things: iron and protein. This usually finds me chowing down on a double cheese burger somewhere. Yesterday, sadly, I missed lunch so I didn’t have it in me to plan dinner. Many thanks to The Mill and their rib eye special! Blowing off lunch means I’m still kind of catching up today. And still craving beef.
The day after a Half usually also means a lot of rest. That doesn’t really happen when you have a puppy. So, I was up at the crack of dawn, walked my dogs and headed to the SPCA to get some shelter dogs out. Not a lot of energy left for dinner. God Bless the Crock-Pot! Over the years I’ve found a lot of good recipes in Stephanie O’Dea’s Make It Fast, Cook It Slow. This is another one! I did my chopping, little as it was, this afternoon and threw everything in the Crock-Pot. When I got back from puppy class I put the insert in the cooker and set it to High. Do other stuff for four hours and voila!
Here’s the rest of the good news. I had 1/2 a can of coconut milk and 1/2 an onion left from a few days ago. All of the spices I already had in the house so all I had to buy was one pound of stew meat!
Here’s what you need: (for half a recipe)
- 1 lb stew beef, cubed
- 1/2 can (1 C) coconut milk
- juice of 1/2 lime
- 1/2 onion, cut into chunks
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 inch fresh ginger, minced
- 2 t brown sugar
- 1/2 t cumin
- 1/2 t curry powder
- 1 T chopped cilantro stems
- 1-2 t Thai chile sauce
- salt
The original recipe calls for 1/2 t of ground coriander. I didn’t have any, but I do have cilantro. Cilantro stems are very flavorful and tender enough to use so I substituted those.
Here’s what you do:
- dump everything in a small Crock-Pot
- Cook on high 4 hours
- Serve over rice
Adjust the amount of chile sauce to adjust the heat. I thought this was just perfect, and I like hot, but not too hot. You might also cut the beef in smaller cubes. It cooked just fine, but they were right on the edge of needing to be cut. It makes sense to cut them small enough to be small bite-sized.
Easy, good and probably 2 meals of leftovers. Perfect!