Stew

Not soup so not an contest entrant.

Santa Fe Beef Stew in the Slow Cooker.

Shhhh. I didn't let on to Mr Big Food but I messed up-- it's a complicated fancy slow cooker with a bunch of digital gadgets and lights and 0.7 timers and all. The cooker was prepared before he and Miss M ventured into the Real World today at about 7. All I had to do was to set the crockpot for 11 hours on low and turn the stupid thing on at 8.

It took me until 8:40 to figure out that I had been out smarted by a slow cooker.

At 8, I set it for 11 hours, but failed to turn the stupid thing on.

At the 11 hour mark-- that would be 7pm-- I was to increase the power level to "high" and insert some veggies.

I did some adjustments. I was 40 minutes late in turning the stupid thing on but the more I thought about it, the less important those 40 minutes were.

At 7:20 I powered it up to "high" and threw in the zucchini.

No one noticed. And that-- Hey Aggie!- is the joy of slow cooking.