I picked the wrong day to make Tuscan-Style Beef Stew.

Saturday is laundry day. I do all my laundry on Saturday morning, so that means I’m running up and down the stairs many times, and I have to strip the bed and than make it, and well, it’s more than enough work for one morning. 

But I had bought all the fixings for Tuscan-Style Beef Stew and they set me back a pretty penny and by gum I was gonna make Tuscan-Style Beef Stew if it killed me.

It was one of those recipes where you had to do a bunch of things then stick it in the oven for a couple hours and then when it came out of the oven do a few more things, so it was difficult to figure out the timing when making it for the first time. Especially when making it while still running up and down the stairs to check on the wash.

After salting the beef and letting it sit for a awhile, you brown some of it in a Dutch oven and then add the rest of the beef along with wine, garlic, shallots, carrots, rosemary, bay leaves, cracked peppercorns, gelatin, tomato paste, and anchovy paste, then let it bake in the oven at a low temperature for two hours until the beef becomes fork tender. After that you remove the beef and strain the liquid. You’re supposed to use a fat separator to remove the fat, but I don’t have one so I just skimmed the fat off as best as I could. Then heat the sauce to reduce it and finally add the beef back in.

It turned out great. But the recipe called for four pounds of boneless beef short ribs, which were selling for $11 a pound at Esposito’s. And it took a whole bottle of chianti. So kind of pricey for a home-cooked meal. But the leftovers keep for several days in the fridge and I froze some. So perhaps four or five meals all told.