Week 3 - Slow Cooker Swiss Steak

On Sunday, I made slow cooker swiss steak that was served over mashed potatoes. This was my second attempt at finding a suitable base recipe. I would say I had marginal success over my last attempt.

Here are the ingredients that I used for this permutation:

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour salt and pepper to taste
• 1 - 1 1/2 pounds round steak, cut into small pieces
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 carrots, sliced
• 2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar, or to taste
• couple dashes of Chipotle tabasco sauce
• 1 green pepper, sliced in larger chunks

I seem to have a strong propensity to add Chipotle tabasco sauce to slow cooker meals. I know I had mentioned earlier that I considered such an addition a form of culinary cheating but this strikes me as an exception. I certainly didn't add enough to overpower the flavors of the recipe. It blended nicely with the sweet green pepper that was added.

The original recipe called for 10 hours of cooking even after sauteeing the vegetables and browning the meat. Goodness!! 7 hours of cooking was already far too much. I like tender vegetables that still maintain some of their texture. I was a bit disappointed with the consistency of the meal and at one point wondered if I had inadvertently created baby food. This, though, can easily be fixed. I wouldn't recommend cooking it for more than 5 to 6 hours on low.

I only added about 3/4 pound of the round steak. Since the meat was a bit thicker, I cut it into thin strips. I don't think that was ideal. I would have preferred to have a thinner cut of meat that I could have cut into inch by inch chunks or so. Perhaps it doesn't really matter at the end.

Overall, I liked the recipe as a base recipe. There needs to be some work done with the seasoning. Also, it would likely be feasible to add a bit of tomato juice and/or tomato sauce to the diced tomatoes. As a result, I would like to continue to explore various combinations in the sauce. Wine could also perhaps be added. The leftovers were fine, however, the flavors didn't continue to develop as they usually do in many of my recipes.

I will continue to tweak the recipe. I will give it 6 stars out of 10 as written above given the lack of depth in flavor. I think it has potential to be greater.

As a side note, my star rating system is in a state of constant evolution. This recipe definitely was more pleasurable to eat than the beef mushroom barley concoction despite receiving a similar rating.