Soups

Paleo Beef and Winter Veggie Stew on a working weekend

by Jessica on January 8, 2013

in Food, Freelance, Main Courses, Paleo, Recipes, Soups, Web Design, Weekend

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This weekend was all about work — tons of coding, lots of drawing, and endless ideas being tossed around. We are working with our first international client, and she is such a sweet lady. I can’t wait to hand her the keys to her new site. I think she’ll love working in WordPress, and will find it so much more effective to blog with. I love that part of our job. Unfortunately, our progress cost us most of our weekend — from Saturday morning to late Sunday night — and we literally collapsed into bed both nights. It’s never good to start Monday totally exhausted, even when you work at home.

To free up some time, Neil put together a huge pot of stew on Saturday while I went and saw Les Miserables with a friend (loved it!). It was quintessential stew weather, very grey, misty, dark and cold. He chose brightly-colored veggies and seared the beef and stirred it all together with the homemade stock we made a few weeks ago. It was ready by the time I came home, and the house smelled amazing. We scooped that last of it out Sunday night, and since we have enough veggies leftover, and he’s putting together another batch tonight to get us through the next two days.

Ingredients:

1.5 pounds chuck roast or “stew meat”, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 shallots
3-4 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into bite-sized pieces
2-3 medium celery stalks, sliced into bite-sized pieces
3 parsnips, peeled and sliced into bite-sized pieces
1 leek, sliced thinly (white part only)
4 cloves garlic, peeled and whole (I smash a bit with the end of my knife for flavor)
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and sliced into bite-sized pieces
1 14.5-oz can organic diced tomatoes
3-4 cups stock of preference (we used chicken stock)
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs fresh thyme
4 tablespoons cooking fat (we used a combo of coconut oil and almond oil)
1-2 tablespoons coarse salt (to taste)
1 tbsp ground pepper

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
  2. Salt cubed beef and set aside.
  3. Saute celery leek and shallots with 1 tablespoon cooking fat (lightly salt) in a medium saute pan over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes. Remove and add to empty dutch oven off to side.
  4. Add carrots and parsnips to pan. Saute 3-4 minutes with 1 tablespoon cooking fat (lightly salt). Remove and add to dutch oven.
  5. Add sweet potato to pan. Saute 5 minutes with 1 tablespoon cooking fat (lightly salt). Remove and add to dutch oven
  6. Add beef to the pan (in batches if necessary) and saute/sear on all sides (get some good color on them). It should only take a few minutes. Remove and add to dutch oven.
  7. Pour 1 cup of stock into saute pan to deglaze, then mix back in with the rest of the broth (we held ours in a large glass measuring cup) and add to the dutch oven.
  8. Add can of tomatoes, bay leaf, thyme, pepper and salt to taste to dutch oven.
  9. Stir contents of dutch oven until combined. Place in oven and bake for 2-3 hours, removing and stirring 1-2 times if desired./li>
  10. Serve alone or with bismati rice.

Makes 4-6 servings.

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We’ve had parsnips before, but for some reason, Neil really loved them in this stew. I loved the way the sweet potatoes softened and kind of melted into the broth and attached themselves to the other veggies and meat. All in all, it was the perfect way to brighten a cold, dark winter day.

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Paleo Sweet Potato Stew

by Jessica on October 23, 2012

in Food, Main Courses, Recipes, Soups

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Paleo + sweet potatoes. Next to bacon, I don’t know if there is a more popular association — which is unfortunate, because we don’t actually eat that much bacon — a post for another day.

The inspiration behind this stew is a cup of sweet potato stew I was surprised by last Friday while eating lunch with friends at a local spot. For weird, almost Seinfeldian reasons, I never order soup or stew from restaurants, but as I was unfamiliar with the restaurant’s menu, I told Neil to “surprise me” and order for me at the counter while I found a table. This stew appeared with my reuben sandwich (a favorite cheat) and it was love at first slurp, the perfect combination of creamy soup and hearty stew. I knew we had to have it in our recipe collection.

This is my first go at it, and I think I came pretty darn close. I’ll share my ideas for my next batch below the recipe — let me know what you think!

Adapted from Gluten Free Goddess

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon light olive oil or coconut oil
1 1/2 pounds boneless pork loin, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon light olive oil or coconut oil
1 tablespoon red or green curry paste, to taste
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 medium red onion, peeled, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium sweet potato or yam, peeled, diced
2 large yellow bell peppers, deseeded, diced
1 jalapeño or other hot chile pepper, deseeded, diced fine
6 celery stalks, diced (about 2 cups)
6 medium carrots, sliced/diced (about 2 cups)
1 quart broth (chicken/beef/veggie, your choice)
1/2 cup almond butter melted stirred into 1/2 cup of boiled hot water
1/2 teaspoon crushed hot red pepper flakes, or more, to taste
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
Juice of one lime
2-3 teaspoons coconut sugar or honey
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste
sriracha, for extra HEAT

Directions:

  1. Heat olive oil/coconut oil in a large dutch oven/pot. Add pork and stir until cooked through. Remove pork from pot and set aside.
  2. Add more olive oil/coconut oil to dutch oven/pot to coat. Add the curry paste and cinnamon and stir until blended with the oil. Once blended, add the onion, garlic, sweet potato, carrots, yellow peppers and jalapeño. Cook the veggies for 5-8 minutes until they soften.
  3. Add the celery, melted almond butter, broth, red pepper flakes and cilantro.
  4. Bring the soup to a low boil, then lower the heat and continue to simmer for 25-30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.
  5. To complete, add lime juice and coconut sugar/honey. Season with salt and pepper to taste and add a swirl of sriracha for extra HEAT. Finally, top with some more cilantro, because you know you bought more than anyone could use and it looks fancy.

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As I mentioned above, I’m thinking of doing round 2. I have plenty of ingredients left since grocery stores assume all people have at least 3 kids in the midwest, and I’m pretty sure Neil would eat soup all day long if he could. For my next round, I’m thinking of upping the almond butter and creating a sweet potato puree with a third sweet potato. I’d decrease the amount of broth to offset, making the final result creamier and less brothy (legit technical term — don’t judge).

Little ideas for improvement aside, this is an amazing soup. I’m thoroughly convinced after this stew and our hugely successful African Beef and Peanut Stew, that almond/peanut butter is a key ingredient. Maybe I’m just a newb, but it’s the last ingredient I would have expected to make such an impact. This coming from a girl who likes chocolate and coffee in her chili.

What’s your favorite soup?

Edited to add: We upped the almond butter and cut the veggies smaller and instead of creating the puree, we displaced a little of the broth with a 14oz can of coconut milk. Delish!

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Slow Cooker Beef and Veggie Stew

by Jessica on January 31, 2012

in Cats, Clive, Dogs, Food, Main Courses, Recipes, Soups

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I don’t know what the weather is like where you are, but it is WARM here. Last night I went running in shorts and a light jacket. It feels like spring, which is crazy because exactly one year ago we were buried in a blizzard! Even crazier? It snowed on Friday when I planned this week’s menu (I’m back on the planning bandwagon), which at the time felt perfect for a hearty beef stew.

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Trimming the roast took a fair bit of time, which quickly turned into entertainment for the ankle-biter squad. Tildy has wasted no time in being completely food-obsessed like her brothers:

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They didn’t take their eyes off Neil the entire time. Oh and we can’t forget the other brother…

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More than once we’ve had to get out of bed in the middle of the night to scare Felix from the counter. He remembers when we prep, and likes to check the counter for leftover goodies after we’ve gone to bed. He’s become a pretty bold little “crumb” snatcher in the past few months, even going so far as to steal a piece of pizza from my mother-in-law at my graduation party. Took off running with it! Such a turd.

Hopefully you can prep and enjoy this soup in peace!

Ingredients:

1 (3-pound) boneless chuck roast
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/3 cup all-purpose almond flour
2 medium yellow onion, medium dice
4 tablespoons tomato paste
8 medium celery stalks, medium dice
10 medium carrots, peeled and medium dice
1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, cleaned, stems trimmed, and quartered
2 cups frozen peas
2 medium garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
1 cup dry red wine
4 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more as needed
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more as needed
1 1/2 cups low-sodium beef broth
1 bay leaf

Directions:

  1. Coat the beef in the flour. Heat a few tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Brown the meat, a few pieces at a time, adding more oil as necessary. Transfer to a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker.
  2. Add the onions to the skillet and cook over medium heat until tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and coat the onions; transfer to the cooker.
  3. Pour the wine into the skillet and scrape up any browned bits; add to the cooker. Stir in rest of the ingredients.
  4. Cover and cook on low heat for 7 1/2 hours, or on high for 4 hours.

Makes 4-6 servings.

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This soup has such a rich flavor! We’d take the credit but really, it was the crock pot. She (yes our crock is a “she”) does all the work for us. There’s nothing better than walking upstairs from the garage to the smell of dinner already waiting. Plus, with the hassle of prep done Sunday night, I was able to eek out a run with the dogs before dinner. Just a little 1.5 miler, but still.

Note: We stuffed our soup to the gills with veggies, so feel free to scrutinize our proportions and lessen where you feel necessary.

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Fall Chili Verde

September 9, 2011
Thumbnail image for Fall Chili Verde

Back in August we received an email from a lovely woman at Marx Foods asking if we wanted to participate in a recipe contest. Contest!? Food!? Um, YES! The hitch as it turned out was that we had to design a recipe that makes use of one or more varieties of dried chilies, which they [...]

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Spicy Chicken Tortilla Soup and Snow Daze

January 20, 2011

We woke up this morning to 8 inches of snow. Everything was and still is completely covered, including the roads. I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to Missouri’s idea of snow removal. Just because people drive on it and does NOT mean it’s clear! If we didn’t have the Jeep, we’d be [...]

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Chunky Vegetarian Stew

December 29, 2010

From the moment I opened my new dutch oven (my Christmas gift from Neil), I’ve been making lists of all the different things I can make with it. If you don’t follow me on Twitter, you’ve been spared the annoyance of my pining for one for the past year. I’ve been wanting one Fore-VER! And [...]

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Mocha Tofu Chili

November 2, 2010

We don’t like to brag, but our Spicy White Chicken Chili is amazing. We love it, and it’s a fall staple that we look forward to by the middle of summer every year. But we didn’t want to be a chili one-trick pony. We wanted a winning red chili recipe as well. I never much [...]

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