Stew On It

So, last night I was hungry for one of my favorite meals.  In fact, it's the meal I would choose as my birthday meal when I was growing up.  Beef tips in gravy served over egg noodles.  Don't get too excited.  That's not what I ended up making last night.  I started in that direction and then I changed it up and made another meal, that turned out to be just as delightful.  I took a good size sirloin steak out of the freezer in the morning, when I got home from work, I cut it off the bone and cubed it up.  I took out the Orange Pot, drizzled some olive oil in the bottom and began to brown the sirloin and bone with kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper, a couple bay leaves and some dried roasted garlic.  (Always throw the bone in too to brown, it adds flavor and you can use it as a fun game for the kids, like "oh look Sophia got the lucky bone".  We do this with bay leaves in our house too-"oh look, Henry got the lucky bay leaf").  Anyway, when it was good and brown, I added a large sliced onion and deglazed the bottom of the pan with a little red wine.  I drained a can of mushrooms, reserving the juice in a gravy shaker and added the mushrooms to the meat.  Don't ever drain your mushroom juice down the sink.  It's a wonderful treasure for deglazing or making gravy.  If you don't think so, save it for me.  I even freeze it, if I can't find an immediate use.  This is where my plans changed.  I decided to add a large can of whole tomatoes, I broke them open in the pot and let them do their thing in the bubbling mixture.  They get soft and velvety and melt away, almost making their own gravy.  I then added about 1 1/2 cups beef stock and the gravy base (mushroom juice, water, kitchen bouquet and flour-all shook up).  Right before serving I added about  2 teaspoons of organic chili paste, it adds a little zip and depth of flavor.  Since I already did a 180 with the meal, I served it over mashed potatoes with a side of vegetables.  It was superb.  We also had the bread that I blogged about last night.  Also superb.  Happy, happy night.  Try it, I'm sure you will agree.