Okay...so now you have all those veggies growing in your back yard, and all you can afford is the cheapest cuts of meat or beans...or better yet, you caught your own food ;) Now what do you do?
Soups and stews are inexpensive, easy to make, and yet one of the most nutritious ways of preparing food. Yes, inexpensive. You can use the cheapest, toughest, crapiest cuts of meat out there...the stewing process of cooking low and slow improves nearly any meat...don't quote me, though, because I haven't stewed oppossum yet...and I've heard how unappetizing oppossum meat is. I have, however, used venison and elk in stews, and found them to be very good. And yes, its healthy...just like a soup, you consume the liquid the food is cooked in. Any nutrients that are leached out into the water still goes directly into your body. Stews, like soups, are also more satisfying than the individual foods cooked dry and served served seperate, thus you are bound to eat less....another good thing for those times of fewer means.
Most of us are familiar with the Dinty Moore style of stew...chunks of beef with carrots and potatoes. You are not limited to these three ingredients. In general, stews tend to consist of a meat (or, for vegetarians, beans) and plenty of root vegetables. However, if you wish, you can eliminate meat and beans all-together. Softer vegetables can be used as well...simply add them last so they cook, but don't turn to mush.
Now, I don't suggest stew meat purchased at the store. Usually, the stew meat is simply the least expensive cut of meat the store offers, but you pay $1-2 more a pound simply to have someone cut it up for you...and usually, it is cut up in chunks far too big to easily injest. This means you have to go through the process of cutting it anyway, so what is the use of spending that extra money?
For most meats, you will want to cut it up, and then brown it on the bottom of the pan before adding onions and water. Don't like onions? Sorry...mom always used onions because they are nature's meat tenderizer. Browning the cut up meat before hand helps keep it from disintergrating. Yes, when meat gets tender, it falls apart. Most fish will fall apart no matter what you do, so just be prepared for that.
The browned meat and onions are added with about a cup of water first and cooked low and slow. If you are making a bean stew out of dried beans, I suggest starting with beans and tomatoes...the tomatoes will allow the beans to get soft, but will keep them from turning to mush. The next thing you will want to add are the harder root veggies, like carrots or turnips, cut up to bite size. The third step would be potatoes. Its ideal that each of these steps is done about an hour or two apart, but not exactly necessary. You can simply do steps one, two, and three in order a minute after the other...just be warned that the potatoes could get mushy before the meat is tender enough. (If you making a bean-free vegetable stew, you can eliminate step one). The final step, during the last 15 minutes to 1/2 hour, would be the softer vegetables.
Mom always added gravy to hers. You can add the gravy at just about any time. You can either use a gravy packet, thinned out, or you can make it yourself. To do this, follow the directions on your boullion to make a stock. (Or you can get really nutty and make home-made stock before hand, but that is an all-day process in itself...just warning you.) Then you mix flour or corn starch with cold water...make it nice and smooth...and add it to the hot stock. If you mix flour or corn starch directly with the stock, rather than mixing it with cold water first, will get you nothing but doughy lumps. Not appetizing, don't do it. This would be the idea time to add any spices you wish to have in your stew. Bay leaves and pepper corns are common with beef stews and soups...just remember to remove them before consuming. (An easy way to accomplish this is to put the bay leaf and pepper corns in a tea strainer...then all you have to worry about is fishing out the strainer rather than searching through the stew or soup for however many tiny pepper corns you tossed in there).
Once everything is nice and tender, the stew is done. You can serve it with any kind of bread that would sound good with whatever kind of stew you are making.
You can even make a stew out of fruit if you really feel the need...I made something last year that inlcuded pork butt and apples....delicious, but since Mr. Picky Eater (who will scream bloody murder if you put tomato sauce on his spaghetti) absolutely refused to touch it without compromise, we haven't had it since. Just remember that fruit, when cooked, can easily turn to mush. Think apple sauce.
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