On a cold dark day of winter,
cook with a large extended family
to get warmed up!
Hey Island Pacific Supermarket- Fresno,
I appreciate your gratitude with your Military / Veterans Discount that you show.
I'm mostly happy with you.
After we visited you for ingredients for Winter Ultimate Slow Cooker Comfort Stew.
We went to visit cousins in Fresno who had grown up eating our Winter Ultimate Slow Cooker Comfort Stew. They asked us to come teach their immediate family of 3 and their brother-in-law's family of 2 and their sister-in-law and her fiancé how to make our Winter Ultimate Slow Cooker Comfort Stew. I had learned from my mother who had learned it from her mother. Cousins drove us to and from. Upon arrival, cousins recommended Island Pacific Supermarket- Fresno for shopping for our ingredients. Island Pacific Supermarket- Fresno's food was okay although thoroughly check for freshness we quickly realized. Their customer service was a bit standoffish as it seemed I was competing for attention with a wait staff's cell phone and not as forthcoming with assistance as I wanted since I was new to the store. Hence 4 stars instead of 5.
All day the sunshine was like gloam.
It was too wet to outside-play.
So we cook and play Scrabble in the home.
All that cold, cold, wet day.
Winter Ultimate Slow Cooker Comfort Stew
for 8 adult servings
1 pound of beef stew cube
1/2 pound ox-tails
1 pound fresh purple potatoes cut into quarter sections
1 pound fresh parsnips cut into quarter sections
1 pound fresh turnips cut into quarter sections
1 pound fresh carrots cut into quarter sections
2 pounds chopped fresh yellow onions
1/4 pound minced fresh garlic
1 six-ounce can Cento tomato paste
2 tablespoons Worcestershire
1 finely chopped large Yukon potato for thickening
1 26 oz. Swanson Cooking Stock Beef Unsalted No MSG 100% Natural
1 dried bay leaf
1 teaspoon thyme
¼ teaspoon ground clove
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon iodized sea salt
For a rich beef stew that is perfect for the cold weather as it takes 8 hours to slowly cook starting with the seared / browned ox-tail then the beef stew cubes in the unsalted butter with all the meat drippings fat included, and onions and garlic browned in the meat dripping then add the spices, tomato paste, finely chopped Yukon potato, and stock. Then put all that into a 22 quart slow cooker. Put temperature at Low for 6 hours. Then add the vegetables and cook another 2 hours on Low. Everything permeates the house with mouth-watering smells. Strictly speaking, meat, onions and garlic doesn't need to be seared / browned before it's added to the slow cooker, but it's a step we find worth the effort. The caramelized surface of the meat and onions adds rich flavor to the finished dish. At the end of the 8 hours, turn off the slow cooker and let everything stand for 30 minutes, remove bones if any are left, then serve for melt-in-your-mouth flavors.
Serve with a loaf of San Luis Cracked Wheat Sourdough Bread, for bread-dipping Giuseppe Giusti - Gran Deposito Aceto Balsamico Di Giuseppe Giusti Moderna - Italian Balsamic Wine Vinegar 8.45 fl.oz, and for drinking add plain water for everyone and a bottle of Chianti Classico for the adults and Welch's 100% Concord Grape Juice for the children.
Owners of Island Pacific Supermarket- Fresno like their Freedom so they have a daily Military and Veterans Discount as a token thank you to Veterans and GIs with a publicly disclosed daily Veteran Discount which provides resource to ensure Veterans (rare 7% of the population) and GIs (rare one-half of one percent of the population) opportunity to participate in American Dream Veterans and GIs' sacrifices have made possible for 100% of the population.
Today, 7 December, is National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Please take a moment of silence to honor and remember the 2,403 GIs and civilians who were killed during the Japanese first-strike sneak attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet's base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on 7 December 1941. Japan wanted to move into the Dutch East Indies and Malaya to conquer territories that could provide important natural resources to Japan such as oil and rubber. By destroying a large portion of the American fleet, they hoped to conquer the Philippines and Malaya while America was still recovering from its own damages as simultaneous Japanese attacks were launched on these places while Pearl Harbor was taking place.
Japan, the then one Asian, African or South American nation that had modernized instead of being colonized, could not accept the then American demands. "At this moment," Japan's Emperor declared, "our Empire stands on the threshold of glory or oblivion." The Japanese attack on Pearl directly caused America's entry into WWII which directly led to US' eventual launch of the horrific atomic bombs on Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an outcome that directly led to disaster for the Japanese, and the end of WWII. read more