Bad Jack's Summer Stew

Bad Jack's Summer Stew and freshly baked bread

Summer is not the season that leaps to mind when I think about crockpot cooking. In fact, my crockpot typically stays tucked up on a high shelf in the pantry, gathering dust, while I’m out grilling on the BBQ or coming up with easy cool salads that use produce from my garden.

No, when I think of crockpot cooking, I always think of fall and winter. Coming home after a long day at work to the smell of a great stew or pot roast that’s been cooking all day definitely says ‘cold weather’ to me.

But really, when it comes to easy summer cooking, why wouldn’t I want to use my crockpot? Instead of heating up the entire kitchen by turning on the oven or stove, I can keep the heat contained in one small place and neither do I have to stand outside, sweating over the gas grill while the bugs make a meal out of me.

So really, now that I think of it – the crockpot is the perfect way to cook during the summer.

Honestly though, the primary reason I pulled out the crockpot today was my husband Jack and his bad habit of taking meat out of the freezer to thaw (upon the assumption that we’d be using it on the same day) only to have it unthaw and sit for a couple of days in the refrigerator. Such was the case with the package of elk round steak he unearthed from the depths of the deep freeze on Thursday so that he could grill them that evening. I can’t remember what it was we ended up eating instead, but the elk meat went back onto the refrigerator shelf where it sat until today (Saturday) when I decided I had to either “use it or lose it.”

Down came the “Wild Game Cookbook” published by the North American Hunting Club (my husband is the hunter/gatherer in the family) and I paged through the recipes until I came across “Cindy’s Crock Pot Stew.” I had all the ingredients on hand (for once) and even turned the recipe up a notch by including some of my yellow summer squash and zucchini fresh from the garden.

After dumping the ingredients into the trusty crockpot, I had time left over during the day so that I could make two loaves of bread and a big batch of refrigerator pickles (both recipes coming soon). Who says I don’t know how to relax on a summer day?

I made some modifications to the recipe to save time. The recipe called for dry minced onion, garlic powder, salt & pepper and instead, I used a package of dry onion soup mix. I’ve renamed it “Bad Jack’s Summer Stew” in honor of my husband, his bad habit and the season.

Bad Jack’s Summer Stew (serves 4-6)

Ingredients

3 lbs. of venison (or beef stew meat)

 5 small red potatoes (quartered)

4 carrots, cubed

1 small zucchini, sliced thickly

1 small yellow squash, sliced thickly

1 package of dry onion soup mix

1 14 ½ oz. can of stewed tomatoes

1 can of cream of celery soup

1 T of Worcestershire sauce

1 T cornstarch

Strain the stewed tomatoes and pour the juice into the crockpot. Add potatoes, carrots, zucchini, squash and meat in that order. Sprinkle meat with the onion soup mix. Add stewed tomatoes, cream of celery soup, and Worcestershire sauce. Cook in crock pot on high for 4 hours. When done, mix cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of water and add to gravy to thicken.