What was Dinner 05/09/2012

Yesterday was Madeline visiting day so as always dinner needed to be something simple and easy so that I could work it around playing dress up,making sandcastles and enjoying cinnamon toast with sprinkles.
     I decided to make beef stew using the left over beef and juice from the French Dip we had earlier this week. The juice is more a nice rich broth then a juice and works real well as the base of my stew. 

                                        
         

I used 2 cups of the liquid and froze the rest it was about another 2 cups so worth saving.I ruffly chunked up the remaining beef  as well as a few potatoes,carrots and onion. Since the beef and broth are already well cooked  I don't even need a lot of cook time just enough to thicken the broth and get the vegetables tender.  
      An hour before I expected to be back home from the round trip taking Madeline home I started my stew. I lightly browned the beef in a little oil and 2 tbs of flour to make the rue I added the onions and made them translucent I carefully added my broth and cooked about 5 minutes then I added my chunked vegetables and brought it all to a boil uncovered. Once it came to a boil I lowered the heat to low, covered  the pan and left it to cook.
    When I returned the vegetables were done just like we like them and the house smelled delicious. All that was left to do was add the frozen peas to the stew, toss together a salad and brown up what was left of the  French Dip roll .

As I said earlier this week. There is so much you can do with the left over French dip.The broth from the French dip is what makes this stew the best I have ever tasted.