January 3: Middle Eastern-Spiced Beef, Tomatoes and Beans

Today was grocery day; I go get my groceries at around 11am, so I had to wait till a little later to start my dinner. It was about 1:20pm. The only draw back I can see to following this cookbook is if I forget to start the meal earlier than dinnertime. :) Then we'll be eating at midnight! Anyway, today I made a middle-eastern spiced dish, which I think was my first, and I wasn't sure if I would like it. I started by gathering the ingredients:

 

I cubed up the beef and removed most of the fat, then browned the cubes in olive oil in 2 batches:

 

While the beef was cooking, I chopped up the onions and green beans:

 

In the Crock-Pot, I mixed the beef, tomatoes, beans and onions, spices, and sugar:

 

Then I cooked it on high for 4 hours (the other option was to cook on low for 8 hours):

 

I stirred the olive oil, salt and pepper into the pot and let it sit for 15 minutes. Meanwhile I cooked some couscous:



 

Then I served it up on a fluffy bed of couscous:

 

Like I said, I was not sure if I would like the seasonings in this dish, but it turns out that I really liked it very much. It was very well balanced. My Dear Husband, after being asked his honest opinion, reported that he does not like couscous, and the tomatoes were horrible. Other than that, he really liked it. One of the options is to make it with rice, so next time I could try that. It wouldn't be the same without the tomatoes; I absolutely loved them! So I'm not sure what I'll do next time. I'll just keep praying that he learns to like tomatoes. :) My son (he is 14 months old) gobbled it up like he hadn't eaten in a week.