A few years ago I stumbled upon a blog that really struck a chord with me. The blog was Chaos and Pain. It was mostly about lifting weights, porn, and steroids. However, there was a few blog posts that really set itself apart.
The author of the blog wrote a few articles on what he called “stewroids.” The series of articles was about how ancient cultures all had different variations on hearty stews and soups that they would consume.
These stews were vastly different than the typical meals we have today. In writing about stews, the author shows a possible reason why ancient cultures had strong people while todays typical American is fat, slow, and unhealthy.
Writing about stews resonated with people beyond just having interesting ancient recipes to try. It spoke to something hidden within. A call to the past. I could go on, but I think this commentator says it best:
If you’re interested in stews and ancient cultures like the scythians, make sure to visit Chaos and Pain and check out the articles.
My own Stewroids
I’ve been making stews and chilis for a while now. As referenced in my prior posts about diet, I’m looking to make meals that follow a few criteria:
- Prepared quickly
- Nutritious
- Inexpensive
- Big portions
Making a stew hits on all of these points and has the added benefit of tasting really good!
To make my stew, the ingredients you’ll need are:
- Beef cubes, you can get beef stew packs with meat made precut for stew, or you can get a steak like a flank steak and cut it yourself. Usually a cut of steak will taste better because it has more fat in the meat, but for ease of use, cubes were used in this example.
- Red onion.
- Green/Red/Orange/Yellow peppers, you can use whatever you want depending on your tastes.
- Baby red potatoes.
- Carrots.
- Jalapeno peppers.
- Spices of your choosing. I prefer curry powder, chili powder, oregano, crushed red pepper flakes, etc.
- 1 can of tomato sauce.
- 1/2 cup of beef broth.
The way that you prepare this meal is just throw everything into a crock pot and put it on low heat for 8 hours. I like to prepare this right before I go to bed so that when I wake up in the morning, it’s ready to go.
The crock pot is a versatile tool in the kitchen. You can get any kind of meat and turn it into a meal easily. If you don’t have one yet, I highly recommend getting one as it will make your life so much easier in the kitchen. If you don’t have a crock pot, you can just use a conventional pot, but you’ll have to look after the preparation more.
This stew will provide me with about 4-5 meals. It will cost me something like 10-15 dollars. So for 15 dollars at the max, I’m getting a good meal for 2 days worth of meals. This is how I reduced my weekly food bill from around 85 to 50 bucks for a week’s worth of food.
Give this stew a try and let me know how it goes.
Got any stew recipes of your own? Write them below.
-Tate
Badass. Will try soon.