January 21: Middle Eastern Beef and Eggplant Stew

This recipe is from the Soup for Supper section. Here are the ingredients:

 

I cooked up the eggplant:

 

Then transferred it to the crockpot. I added quartered mushrooms, diced tomatoes, cubed beef top round steak, an onion, beef broth, garlic, salt, cumin, red pepper flakes, cinnamon, lemon peel, and pepper.

 

That cooked on low for 6 hours:

 

And we served it up:

 

My husband took one look at this and said, "I sure hope this tastes better than it looks." And it did. He said it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. But he wishes it was only beef and broth. I guess he didn't like the vegetables much. What I wonder is why you have to cook the eggplant first. It sure does get mushy. Maybe it's just for the flavor. I really liked the broth, and the chunks weren't too bad. Pretty good for a weeknight meal, I would say.