For years I have felt a sense of relief having a well stocked food pantry. As a young married lady, after our shelves and fridge were restocked from a shopping trip, it was the highlight of my day. My entertainment was going shopping with my hubby and children at a grocery warehouse. This may sound corny, but I looked forward to our "Night Out" shopping.
We seldom had a babysitter...couldn't afford one and as often as we relocated, we didn't have anybody that we knew well enough to trust to babysit. We seldom went on an official date with out the kids. It's important to still date your husband after you're married so you may have to get real creative on what to do on a shoestring budget. It can be done.
Back to the tax man cometh meal. It's crockpot time and if this stew turns out, I'll let you know about it. I am stretching for contents to put in the crockpot. Just one of those days...
I had a package of stew meat in the freezer.
Without thawing the meat, I poored olive oil in the crockpot for the meat to thaw out as it's cooking.
Turn the crock on high.
After a couple of hours, the meat has thawed.
Add the extras. This will a desperate attempt to create a throw together stew.
I used left over spaghetti sauce from a jar for tomato flavor with spices.
After emptying the sauce on top of the meat, put a little water in the jar and swish the water around to wash the inside of the jar and use all the sauce that you can. There was only about a cup of sauce anyways and I wanted to use as much as I could.
I had a 11.5 oz. can of V8. Used this as well.
Added a 14.5 oz. can of beef broth found on the pantry shelf.
A can of corn went in next along with washed, chopped, limp celery. Waste nothing.
A small package of baby carrots added.
Here in a little bit, homemade noodles will go in the crock. These noodles were bought at a elderly community's fund raiser...gotta be good.
Stew needed some thickening to it. Ketch-up was added.
Just added what was left of mild On the Border Salsa to the stew. Wasn't hardly any of this salsa left in the jar, so I added a little water to swirl around in the jar and poured the liquid into the crock.
I pray it turns out. The aroma in the air smells good, so I will have faith that this thrown together stew taste good enough to eat.
Oh Lord, help me now in my time of need!
God richly bless you.
Deanna here pulling a rabbit out of her hat.
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Thrown Together Stew turned out just fine and everybody loved it.
It tasted better than it looked!
