Tikkabik

Last night I made Beef and Guinness Stew in the slow cooker. It was quite good. Here's the rundown:

Two and a half pounds of stew meat, floured and sauteed til brown.
Three large potatoes, cut to bite-sized chunks
Three large carrots, cut same
Three big stalks of celery, cut same
Two yellow onions, quartered
One clove garlic, chopped
Two fresh sprigs of thyme
Two cups of stout

Put the vegetables in the bottom of the slow cooker, put the meat over it, then pour the stout over the entire thing. Cook for eight hours.

The alcohol in the stout cooks off slowly over time, and the flavor of the stout is absorbed into the root vegetables. The liquid from the stout and the vegetables, as they heat, mixed with the juices from the meat, are more than enough to create a tasty base -- you don't need to add any additional liquid, though at first it looks a bit dry. And the starch from the potatoes helps to thicken it up, though if it's runny when you finish you can always thicken it quick with a bit of cornstarch.

It's quite a tasty concoction, though I wish in retrospect I'd added salt and pepper earlier and put in more garlic too. Amazingly, the vegetables didn't turn to jelly -- they were still reasonably firm and very tasty -- well, except for the celery. That I should have added a bit later too. Definitely worth a try.

Beth likes soda bread with this stuff, but I hate soda bread just in general. So I opted for a nice crusty baguette.

Next up, chicken and dumplings.