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This past December, I travelled through Austin, Texas and visited with my good friend Chuck Cahill who lives in Bastrop. He and I worked together at YFCS, where he ran the network and I ran the one person legal department which was about a 10×10 office, always way too hot thanks to the stuffy beancounter next door. Those were the days. haha! Chuck and I used to go to lunch everyday, but it would be too easy to get carried away talking about that.

Chuck cooked Cowboy Stew when I was there in December, and it was delicious. He tried to teach me how to make it with stuff easily picked up off the grocery store shelves. I been cooking it at home pretty regularly since then. Well, I guess I made about 7 or 8 of them with store bought canned ingredients before I started really wanting to learn how to make something similar from scratch, using fresh ingredients from local farms.

At the same time, I’ve been wanting this 41 quart All American Pressure Canner for years to can starter wort, but never have bought one, especially given that my homebrewing buddy Brant beat me too it and we can always use his at the famous Rocket City Brewers Starter Wort Canning Days. But when I got a hankering to can some beef stew, I couldn’t resist.

So my first attempt at canning a stew was using ingredients from Mr. Fresh’s Farmer’s Market on Pepperell Parkway just across the Auburn/Opelika line in Opelika.

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I didn’t research a recipe or anything. I just went in and got bags of this and that. Whatever made sense and was fresh and local. And as I put the ingredients in bags, I just eyeballed whatever proportions I thought looked right. Here’s my notes from shopping along with some additions from the day of cooking, and my thoughts after tasting. If you’re thinking about making something yourself, this is NOT a suggestion about what you should do. I screwed up my first attempt and am still in search of how to do this right.

Beef Stew Recipe #1

8lbs vine ripe tomatos (12) .89/lb (I blanched these)
3lbs white sweet potatos (4) .89/lb (probably shouldn’t have used sweet, which gets mushy to easily)
1.5lbs yellow squash (6) 1.19/lb
2x red peppers
2lbs colored butter beans 2.19/lb (wish I could have found pinto)
1.5lbs cut okra 1.79/lb
2lbs of steak meat (for this big a batch, I should’ve used ALOT more beef)
1g water (should never have added water.. it ended up way too think and did this raise the pH and did this cause the bland taste?)
2 palms of salt
forgot the onions this time
2 palms of thyme (too much!)
cooked in kettle for 60 minutes (maybe this coupled with the 90 minute canning is what turned it to mush)
pressure cooked at 15psi for 90 minutes (i’d like to skip cooking in kettle and just add all relevant ingredients directly to the mason jar and can it… not sure if this is possible)

I’m not sure what to do next time, but I’ll be thinking about it. Still, thanks Chuck for getting me started with your Bastrop Cowboy Stew. I’ll enjoy figuring this out.