I think it’s ironic how much I love my crock pot.
I tend to do things quickly — sometimes too quickly — in an attempt to save time and be more efficient.
So you’d think I’d use my pressure cooker more often. Faster meals, less time, more efficient.
But instead, I cling to my trust crock pot, a slow cooker, emphasis on “slow.”
I love to make fall-off-the-bone shoyu chicken or simple pot roasts in this contraption. Dump all the ingredients in, turn it on, go about my daily life and come home to a kitchen filled with some delicious aroma. It’s like dinner cooked itself.
So last night I pulled out my crock pot, a gift my mom had given to me years ago. I decided to make my favorite Hawaiian-style beef stew.
Hawaiian-style beef stew is really not the best name for this dish. This style has a tomato sauce-based broth — which has nothing to do with traditional Hawaiian cuisine. Still, this brand of stew — hearty, with chunks of meat, veggies and potatoes — is hugely popular in the Islands and can be found at just about any plate lunch shop or lunch wagon.
And it’s super easy.
Here’s the step-by-step, with the recipe below:
