Beef stew (with love from France)

My apologies for taking so long to post another recipe. We moved a couple of times toward the end of 2009, most recently to a town near Paris, France to attend a French language school. We are living in something of a family style dorm and I have a small kitchenette with limited tools to cook our meals. I am not sure what the next year holds for us in terms of culinary adventures, with the use of two electric burners, a tiny refrigerator and a small oven hanging near my head. But thank goodness I cannot eat gluten! I cannot resort to packaged convenience meals…my family will have real vegetables.

I was delighted by the food selection at the discount grocer a couple blocks from our apartment today. Some things, like peanut butter, were conspicuously absent from the shelves. But when I quickly realized that I had an excuse to eat Nutella, a delicious chocolaty spread, on my gluten free bread, I got over my loss of peanut butter. I have yet to determine where I will find gluten free flours, but there are several grocery stores I still have not visited. Tomatoes, leeks, shallots and olive oil were a much better price and quality than I usually encountered in the States, and so I was inspired to make the stew below.

Ideally, you would brown the meat in a dutch oven and slow cook the stew in the oven. But as this is not an option for me, I browned and simmered the stew in a pot on the stove. This is another no measuring allowed recipe. Just sprinkle and taste until you are satisfied. I used white wine and white balsamic vinegar as it was what I had on hand, but red for both would be wonderful and maybe preferable depending on your tastes. Bon appetit!

• 1 ½ – 2 lb beef stew meat
• olive oil
• 1 medium to large yellow onion, diced
• 2 shallots, diced
• 5 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 large leek, white and yellow part only, rinsed and sliced.
• 5 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
• 4 or 5 medium yellow potatoes, scrubbed and cut into chunks
• 1 14.5z can of stewed tomatoes
• white balsamic vinegar (or red)
• 2 cubes of beef bouillon (gluten-free, *optional)
• 1 bottle of dry white wine (or red)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• herbes de Provence, or thyme

Pat your stew meat dry with a paper towel or two so that it will brown nicely. Drizzle a little olive oil in the bottom of a dutch oven or large stew pot, enough to lightly coat the bottom. Heat the oil over medium high heat until hot. Drop the beef into the pot, sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and brown on all sides. Remove the stew meat to a plate. Add the diced yellow onion, shallots, garlic, leeks and a little more salt and pepper to the hot oil in the pot and cook over medium to medium high heat until the onions are translucent. Add the carrots, yellow potatoes, stewed tomatoes, a drizzle or two of balsamic vinegar (maybe a tablespoon?) and a good sprinkling of the herbes de Provence. Stir to combine. Add the browned stew meat back into the pot, the beef bouillon if desired and the bottle of wine. Simmer on low heat with lid ajar for about 2 hours. Taste to see if the stew needs additional salt and adjust accordingly.

Serve over steamed white rice or with some fresh gluten-free bread.

Butternut beef stew with potato bread

When butternut squash is in season, we try to eat as much as we can, and it definitely tastes best roasted in the oven! Here is an African inspired, hearty fall meal that will serve about 8 to 10 people. If you are serving some bread enthusiasts, you might want to make two loaves.

Butternut Beef Stew

• 2 T coconut oil
• 1 T ground coriander
• 1 T cumin
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground red pepper or hot curry powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 ½ lb beef stew meat
• 2 tsp chopped garlic
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 1 6z can of tomato paste
• ½ C natural peanut butter
• 4 C beef broth (gluten free)
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 baking potatoes, scrubbed and cut into chunks
• 1 small butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks
• juice of a small lemon
• optional: handful of chopped cilantro for garnish

Potato Bread

• 1 microwaved baked potato

• 1 package of active dry yeast
• 1 C sorghum flour
• 1 C tapioca flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 T sugar
• 2 tsp xanthan gum
• 1 egg
• 2 T melted butter, slightly cooled
• ¾ C of warm water

Heat the oil in a large soup pot or dutch oven over medium high heat. Add the ground coriander, cumin, cinnamon, ground red pepper and salt and let the spices fry for 1 minute in the oil. Add the beef stew meat and the chopped garlic and brown the beef on all sides, in batches if necessary. Add the diced onion and stir, cooking for another minute or two while you open the can of tomato paste. Stir in the tomato paste thoroughly. Add the beef broth, peanut butter and the bay leaves. Simmer for 2 hours.

After you get the stew simmering, prepare the squash and potatoes for roasting. Cut them into 2 inch chunks and toss them with oil to coat and a sprinkle of salt on a large baking sheet or roasting pan.

Prepare the potato bread dough. Scrub the potato and pierce it several times with a fork. Wrap it in a paper towel and microwave it for about 5 minutes. Scoop out the flesh of the potato into a bowl, mash it and let it cool while you mix the dough. Microwave the 2 T of butter and let it cool while you measure out the other ingredients. Add the yeast, flours, salt, sugar, xanthan gum, egg, and melted butter to a mixing bowl. Add the warm water (check the back of the yeast package for directions on exact temperatures) and mix with an electric mixer for three minutes. There is no gluten to develop in this bread, so no intense kneading is required! Add the mashed potato and mix for another minute. Oil your hands generously and form a ball with the dough, placing it in an 8 inch non-stick round or square baking pan.

Place the bread dough on one rack of the oven and turn on the heat to 400 degrees. The bread will rise as the oven heats up (gluten-free bread doesn’t have a long rise time). When the oven reaches 400 degrees, place the veggies in the oven on the second rack and roast them for about 40 minutes, stirring once after twenty minutes to help keep the squash from sticking to the pan. The bread should also bake for about the same time, 35 to 40 minutes. Just don’t let it burn.

Take the bread and veggies out of the oven. Gently fold the roasted veggies into the stew after it has simmered about 2 hours and let it all simmer about 10 more minutes, then turn off the heat and squeeze in the juice of a lemon. You can serve the stew garnished with a little cilantro over steamed white rice or plain, with a chunk of potato bread.

Spaghetti and meatballs

The extra time you spend preparing this sauce yourself, instead of opening a jar of store bought, will be well worth your effort. This recipe will feed quite a few hungry people, about 8 to 10 good size servings. I don’t explicitly state this in the recipe, but it is important to verify that your ingredients are gluten-free. Check the labels on tomatoes, cheese, and meats, and call the manufacturer for verification if you have any doubt. This would also be a fine time to utilize your food processor if you have one, as the most time consuming element of the recipe, besides the browning of the meatballs, is chopping the vegetables for the sauce. But I don’t recommend you chop your onions in the food processor – it seems to really let those eye irritating onion juices permeate the air, and your guests might shed a tear or two when they walk in your door.

Marinara sauce:

• 1/3 C olive oil
• 1 large onion or 2 small onions, finely chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
• 2 tsp chopped garlic
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• ½ C white wine (optional)
• 2 28z cans of crushed tomatoes
• 1 14.5z can of diced tomatoes
• 1 small can of tomato paste
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 1 T of dried basil

In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the chopped onion, carrot, and celery, as well as the garlic, salt and pepper to the pot and cook for about 10 minutes. Add in the white wine and cook for another minute. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. Simmer on low heat with the lid askew on top of the pot.

Meatballs:

• 1 lb ground beef or turkey
• 1 lb sweet Italian sausage
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 C Italian blend of shredded cheese
• ¼ C parmesan cheese
• 1 egg
• 1 T chopped garlic
• ¼ tsp ground pepper
• a few pinches of nutmeg

Place all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix them with your hands until everything is combined. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Form the meatballs into balls the size of large golf balls. Brown them on all sides in batches in the skillet, turning gently with some tongs. When browned, deposit them gently into the marinara sauce. Simmer the sauce and meatballs for at least an hour, and preferably more toward 3 hours. Serve over brown rice pasta with a side salad.