Vegetable Beef Stew

Two things. 1) I got an immersion blender a while back and I am now obsessed with it and 2) after the holidays I feel the need to eat copious amounts of veggies.  So with that said, this isn't your traditional stew.  The thick broth (I really want to call it stew juice) is made just from veggies and not thickened with flour.  The only thing about this recipe is that if you don't have an immersion or regular blender, your out of luck.

Vegetable Beef Stew
What you'll need:
1 roast (fairly lean, size is up to you.  Mine was really big, but I only used half for the stew)
4 cups beef stock (take as much of this from the slow cooker juice as you can.)
1 large parsnip
5 cups carrots diced
3 cups small yellow or red potatoes quartered
2 cups celery diced
1 cup onion diced
1 medium crown broccoli
1 medium to large celery root, peeled and diced (Ugly little vegetable, I took pictures on how to deal with it)
3-4 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce

In the morning, place your roast, season with salt and pepper into your slow cooker.  Cover it with as much of the onions, potatoes, carrots and celery as you can fit and set to low.  You probably won't be able to fit even half, but thats ok, you'll cook those later.

After at least 6 hours, when beef is falling apart, remove vegetables from slow cooker and place in a large bowl.  Place the roast onto a plate and break up into quarters to allow to cool enough to handle.  Add 4 cups beef stock, spices and remaining uncooked vegetables into a large pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling vegetables are fork tender, remove some of the parsnips and as much of the other remaining vegetables you'd like and add to the bowl, these will be the vegetables in the stew so you'll want a good variety.  You want about 5 cups cooked vegetables set aside and about 5 cups left in the pan.  Just eye ball it though, it doesn't have to be exact.

Remove any extra beef stock so that the liquid is at an equal level with the vegetables, reserving about a cup.  Using your immersion or regular blender, pulse vegetables until smooth.  If it seems too thick, then add the reserved broth until desired consistency (think stew!).  When meat is cool enough to handle, break up into bite size strips and pieces.  Depending on the size of your roast, you probably won't need all of the meat.  I added about 4 cups, you use as much as you'd like.   Add cooked vegetables and meat and mix into stew.  You may want to reheat on medium for a few minutes, just make sure you gently keep stirring it so it doesn't burn.  Done!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I feel like that was a really weird process to explain.  I hope it all makes sense.  As for the stew...it was AMAZING!  I really loved the fact that it was just as thick and yummy as normals stews that you would use flour as a thickener, but instead it was all veggies.  I made a tikka masala in a similar way the other day and it was amazing.  I used all the normal spices and tomato paste but skipped the butter and flour.  I might just make it again soon and share that with everyone too!  Plus I have SUPER yummy recipe to share later that I did with the left over beef.  Enjoy!

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  I pretty much just sewed and cooked all weekend.  Although I did sneak out on Saturday for a little trip to Hancock Fabric, who was having a 60% off sale.  I scored some pretty floral prints for cheap!  Like $2 per yard cheap.  Yay me.  Not sure yet how I'm going to put outfit posts together yet to show you my creations, but I've got one skirt finished to share already!     Oh and I guess we did go on an awesome hike sunday.  We saw lots of deer and moose tracks, I will post a few photos from that adventure too.  I guess I have a lot of stuff, I'd better get busy!  Have a great Monday!  4 more days until another glorious weekend!

Cream of Mushroom Chicken and Vegetables

Have you ever started cooking something with no idea what you were really planning.  Well I did, and this is where I ended up.  I did step one.  I sort of had a plan with what I was going to do with the cooked veggies after they were soft, but ended up making homemade cream of mushroom soup instead.  Who doesn't remember their mom making something like this when they were kids?  I am also really into wild rice blends and quinoa right now, so we'll see where that goes.

Cream of Mushroom Chicken and Vegetables
4-6 chicken thighs
2 cups carrots diced
2 cups celery diced
3 cups mini yellow potatoes halved
1 medium onion sliced
Any other vegetable you want to add (this is all I had in stock at the time)

Remove skin and excess fat from thighs.  Place sliced onions in bottom of slow cooker.  Even lay chicken over onions.  Add remaining vegetables over chicken and cook for 3 hours on high.  Make soup recipe as follows.

Mushroom Soup
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 cups chopped mushrooms
1 generous cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic minced
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon rosemary
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon white pepper
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon butter
2 cups milk (your choice on %, I used 1/4 cup whipping cream and 1 1/2 cups 2%)

Heat oil in a large skillet over high then add mushrooms.  Saute until browned (5-7 minutes).  Add onion, saute for another 3 minutes until you can see onion start to turn translucent, then add garlic and butter.  When garlic becomes fragrant, add stock, thyme, rosemary, oregano and pepper.  Cook until stock reduces almost out (about 5 minutes) and add flour and mix to coat mushrooms.  Add milk and stir with a wooden spoon to combine, being sure to scrape up all the bits from the bottom of the pan.  Return to boil then reduce and heat to medium low stirring fairly frequently until thickens (about 3-4 minutes).

Remove vegetables from slow cooker (don't worry if you don't get then all) and add to mushroom soup.  Mix to coat veggies and pour back over chicken. Allow to cook about 2 more hours on low.  Serve with wild rice.

 

 

 

And comfort food strikes again.  Enjoy!

PS. This is even better the second night!

Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup

Every year I have to make split pea soup. On our birthday, we decided to go over to the local meat market and buy some nice steaks to have for birthday dinner.  To my joyful surprise, they had smoked ham hocks in the case too!  "I'll take the largest one please!"  And that's when split pea soup became our destiny...and I have to admit, I'm surprised by the short ingredient list.  I thought I forgot something, but it's all there.  I'm not sure where the sweet potato came from, I was looking at the veggies I had and just thought it might be a perfect addition.  It was.

Ham and Sweet Potato Split Pea Soup
What you'll need:
1 large ham hock
4 cups diced carrots divided
3 cups chopped celery divided (use heart and leaves if you can)
1/2 large onion chopped
8 cups chicken stock
3 cloves garlic
1 medium sweet potato diced and divided
1 bag dried peas
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

In a large soup pot, add chicken stock and ham hock and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a slight boil and let cook for about 4 hours.  Meat should come off the bone in big chunks.  Don't worry about shredding it, it will continue to fall apart as you make the soup. (You may want to add a little more ham chucks.  We added a small pack of the packaged ham cubes.)

Once ham has fallen off bone, try and remove (if any) the bits of skin/fat that are attached to the meat.  Add garlic and pepper and half of each carrots, sweet potato, onion, and celery.  Allow to cook, still at a small boil, until soft (about 15 minutes).  Once vegies are soft, add the bag of dried peas. Reduce heat to medium low.  Stirring occasionally let peas cook for 30-45 minutes or until you can see that they are starting to absorb the liquid and break down.  Once peas start to mush, but you can still see some of their shape, add remaining vegetables.  The soup will be done when vegetables are soft and soup is thick.  The peas shouldn't be visible anymore.

If you wanted to make this quicker, you could skip the ham hock and just use the packaged ham chunks, but you would loose the awesome flavor that develops from boiling the ham bone.  Winter comfort food? Yes please! Enjoy!

Clam Chowder

Tomorrow is our friend's Julie's birthday so we are having them over for some birthday fun.  I've been planning on making chowder this weekend for a few weeks now, so that's what Julie is getting for her Kam & Bren hang out birthday dinner.  That and a pie thing I made, beer bread, and champagne cocktails!  I kind of made this chowder recipe up, I don't think traditional chowder calls for Old Bay or oregano, but what the heck!  

Clam Chowder
1 1/2 cups bacon
3 cups celery
3 cups carrots
6 cups potatoes
1 tablespoon butter
4 14.5oz cans chicken stock
1 Costco Giant Can Clams (51oz)
4 or 5 bay leaves
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon ground oregano
1 tablespoon plus one teaspoon old bay
3 teaspoons fresh cracked pepper
2 cups half and half
2 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley

Cut bacon into small pieces using kitchen scissors and fry in a large pot.  Once bacon is crispy, remove some of the bacon fat so you have about 2 tablespoons remaining and add butter, onion, celery, carrots and potatoes.  Sweat veggies for about 10 minutes over medium low.  Add chicken stock, clams and juice, bay leaves, salt, oregano, old bay, pepper and 1 cup half and half.  Over medium low bring to a boil then reduce and let simmer until veggies are cooked through. About an hour.

In a small bowl whisk flour with one and half cups milk until smooth and add to chowder with remaining milk and half and half.  Return to a boil stirring fairly often, reduce and eat when ready!  Top with extra bacon and parsley or oyster crackers.

I haven't made chowder in so long, and I know I've never added Old Bay to it. That stuff is becoming one of my favorite on hand flavor boost spices.  So good on popcorn!  Also, this made a giant pot of soup.  I wanted enough to feed 4 people, send some home with Eric and Julie and have left overs for us.  So I you don't want that much chowder, half the recipe.  Hope everyone is having a fun Halloween weekend!  Enjoy!

Kielbasa Dump Soup

I have two things to say before I get to the recipe.  First.  I'm really happy that it's fall.  I had a wonderful and crazy busy summer and seeing the fall leaves and feeling the cool air has been so refreshing.  A really great and much needed change of pace.  Not saying that I didn't have an AMAZING summer that I will never forget and always remember fondly, but living in Spokane with no AC, it's always nice when fall finally rolls around.  Second. With fall comes less day light, with less day light comes cooking in low light situations.  With low light situations comes crappy looking food photos.  Get my drift.  I'm thinking of buying lights so my process and food pictures don't look fake and weird because of too much yellow or green light.  My only reservation on getting lights is my apartment is small and all I need is one (or two) more things cluttering up my space.  If you see a picture that is blurry or weird, please bare with me, believe me, it pains me more than you.  Now, on to...  

Kielbasa Dump Soup
What you'll need:
1/2 onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups diced carrots
1 cup diced celery including the heart and leaves from the center (tons of flavor in the center leaves)
1 cup diced red pepper
1 1/2 cups yukon gold potato cut into bite size pieces
1 1/2 cups sweet potato cut into bite size pieces
1 1/2 cups cauliflower cut into bite size pieces
1 kielbasa cut into bite size pieces
1 can kidney beans drained and rinsed
1 jalapeno thinly sliced (OPTIONAL, if you don't like too much spice, skip it)
1 can diced tomato
1 cup frozen corn
1 cup barley
2 cups spicyV8
8 cups chicken broth or  8 cups warm water mixed with 1 teaspoon chicken bouillon
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons ground oregano
3 bay leaves
3 cloves garlic minced
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon chill powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon hot sauce
1 tablespoon worcestershire
1 teaspoon turmeric

In your large soup pot, add oil, onion, carrot and celery and saute for about 3 minutes. While that is cooking, peel sweet potato.  Now, add everything else and bring to a boil. Reduce to medium low and simmer until barley is done.  About an hour.  Eat.

This is the other mystery gift from my wedding that came with the awesome green zester.  Whoever gave me these gifts, knew their way around good kitchen gadgets. Best peeler I've ever had.  Thank you again who ever you are!

Just before I added all the liquid.

So, pretty basic instructions, I know.  This soup is something really close to one of my favorite soups my mom made once or twice a winter for as long as I can remember.  The fact that I called it dump soup is a tribute to her.  The only thing that I left out of the original recipe is about a half a head of sliced cabbage.  Kam doesn't like it.  Boo.  I made it his way this time. So if you looking for a tasty fall warm up, give this beauty a try.  I know we will be having it at least once more before the cool weather travels on again.  Enjoy!

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

I think I might have gotten an A+ from Kam on this one, but I could have told you that before I started.  Bacon & cream cheese are the two main flavor contributors for this soup.  I don't really have much to say, it kind of speaks for itself.

What you'll need:
1/2 pound bacon cut into pieces (I used a prepackaged kind, which is a little more than half a pound, so I threw some of the fat away)
1 medium onion chopped
1 medium/largish head cauliflower
1 package cream cheese (I used 1/3 fat)
1/2 cup milk (any kind, I used whole because thats what I have from making ice cream, but even skim would do)
2 cups chicken stock (I didn't have any so I used 2 tablespoons chicken bouillon dissolved in 2 cups warm water)
1/4 cup chopped green onion plus more for garnish
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Cook chopped bacon in your soup pot until crispy.  Remove with slotted spoon and set aside. Drain fat leaving about 2 tablespoons and all the bits in the pot.  Cook onions for about 10 minutes on medium heat or until the are very soft and a brownish color.  Add chicken stock and cauliflower.  Bring to a boil then reduce and cover.  Allow cauliflower for cook for about 15 minutes, it will be fairly broke down and very soft.  At this point, it is your choice how you want to mash the cauliflower.  Add your cream cheese and mash.  You can use a potato masher, immersion blender, regular blender, hand mixer, whatever.  Just be sure to really break down all the large chunks.  Add milk, bacon, green onions and pepper.  Reserve a little bacon.  Bring back to a boil, reduce heat, and serve.  Garnish with a tablespoon cheddar cheese, bacon, and green onions.  You will have about 4 bowls of soup.

Be prepared to love yourself.  Enjoy!