Guinness & Beef Stew

A little Irish inspired goodness for this week. So its technically not March yet, but I have big plans the first two weekends of March and didn't want St. Patty's day to come and go without something Irish.  I feel a special kinship with St. Patty's day despite not being one ounce Irish. As a child I was told that my name came from the saying 'Erin go bragh' because I was born on the 11th, my parents thought I was going to be a boy and had no girl name picked out for me for several days. Whether that's true or one of the many lies my sister told me growing up (most notably that I was born with a tail) who knows. The story has never been definitively confirmed (scratch that Mama Bliven has confirmed this story. I was poor little baby girl Bliven for 3 days until named Erin. My father's suggestion of Shawna since baby boy Bliven was going to be Shawn Michel was shot down).  A little disclaimer, I didn't make this recipe up. Its in this month's Cooking Light magazine but thought it sound delish and wanted to make it.

For this stew you'll need canola oil, flour, beef, 3 large onions, tomato paste, beef broth, 1 bottle of guinness, golden raisins, 4 carrots, 3 parsnips, 2 turnips, 2 small potatoes, salt, pepper, bay leaf, rosemary, and about 3 hours of time.

Start by cutting your beef into bite sized cubes. I had a big hunk of boneless chuck roast in my freezer so that's what I used. I had to lop off a giant piece of fat, but otherwise this cut worked nicely. I think it was somewhere around a pound of beef.

Then, chop your onions. I used three large yellow onions. Yes, this is a lot of onion, but it cooks forever and some of it falls apart into the broth. Feel free to scale it back if you don't like onion that much.

Now, sprinkle the beef with salt and coat in flour.  The flour helps the beef brown and some of it will stick to the pot as tasty browned bits.

Heat some canola oil in a large pot. I used a coated cast iron dutch oven because you want some of the beef goodness to stick to the bottom so don't use a non-stick pot. Once the oil is hot add the beef, cook for 5 minutes, browning on all sides and removing from the pot once browned.  Don't cook the beef completely, you just want it browned.

Add a little bit more oil the pot and add all the onions.  Cook them for about 5 minutes or until they start to look tender.

Add about one tablespoon of tomato paste and stir to mix.

Add the guinness, taking a sip if you'd like, or since you usually can't buy it by the bottle and you probably had to buy at least a 6 pack, have an entire pint. Maybe even have it over ice cream. Guinness float? Yes please!

Then add the beef broth. I added around 5-6 cups. Now, scrape the bottom of the pot to remove all the tasty browned beef bits from the bottom. As the soup cooks you may end up with some brown tastiness stuck to the sides of the pot. Scrape those off too. They add wonderful flavor.

Now, put the beef back in the stew.

Lastly, add about a palm full of golden raisins and and season with salt, pepper, some minced fresh rosemary and a few bay leaves.  The raisins will plump up as this cooks. The golden ones also added a nice sweetness to the soup.

Despite the lovely beef smell, the adorable puppy was less than interested. However, we did go on an hour long hike by the Chattahoochee and he was tie-tie.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook for 1 hour. Yes, 1 hour.

Now is a great time to chop up the rest of the veggies. I started with the carrots. I peeled mine first because I got them at a semi-shady farmer's market and my best efforts to wash them left them still looking dirty. Peeling isn't necessary, but they do need to be chopped, however you like.

Next, I peeled and chopped the parsnips. Parsnips look a lot like white carrots, but are much more fibrous. I found it easier to peel them with a knife because when I tried the peeler it just shredded the outer layer without really peeling it off.

Then, I peeled and chopped the turnips.  I actually really like turnips. Honestly, I like root vegetables in general. Some people may think thats odd because most people think they taste like dirt. I think turnips get a bad rap, maybe its because they're a little ugly.

Lastly, I diced two small white potatoes. The Cooking Light recipe actually didn't include potatoes. How can you make an Irish stew without potatoes? That's absurd! My love of root vegetables forbade me from not adding potatoes. Set all the veggies aside.

Once I finished all that, I still had another 40 minutes of simmer time. How to spend all that time? How about checking in with CNN about the earthquake in Chile, being so thankful that Nadine is okay, and making some peanut butter and jelly muffins using the stand mixer she bought me and Brian and the cupcake tins that we may have stolen from her? Yeah, that's what I did with my time. This recipe is also Cooking Light.

After the hour of simmer time is up, uncover the stew, bring to a boil and cook for another 50 minutes. Yes another 50 minutes. At this time, you may be thinking WTF? But the beef needs time to cook, serious time, especially if you want it to be tender. I'm sure you could make this in a crock pot or pressure cooker, but I had time to waste today.

After that 50 minutes is up the stew is going to look a bit like dark brown sludge.

Add your veggies and mix them in.  The stew may look a little thick, but its stew, it should be thick. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until veggies are cooked, about another 45 minutes. You can simmer for longer, if you're like me and have time to waste and a fresh batch of muffins to tide off hunger pangs.

Once this is all done it will not look impressive, after all its an Irish beef stew. But trust me, it tastes good and is the perfect meal on a cold day. Enjoy!

Crock Pot Beef Barley Soup

I adore beef barley soup. My love affair with it started in high school when a friend made it for a biology class dinner party project. I love it so much that I purposely make way too much of it and have to eat it for lunch and dinner for an entire week. Which is something Brian tends not to enjoy as much as I do, but he's traveling for work all next week, making it the perfect time for a week's worth of beef barley.

First, you need some beef. I usually buy the 'stew beef' for this recipe, but there was none at my local Publix (I blame the "Great Atlanta Blizzard of 2010" since we got 1/2 inch of snow, everyone freaked out and bought all the food from the grocery store). I bought this hunk of beef roast meat instead, cut it into three big portions, used one for the soup and threw the rest in the freezer for another day. It probably ended up being 3/4 of a pound of beef. Kindly notice the adorable cow on the cutting board, in case you didn't fully realize that the piece of meat is beef.

Chop the beef up into bite sized pieces small enough to fit on your soup spoon.

I like to marinate my beef overnight in about 1/3 of a bottle of red wine. I started doing this mostly because I had some leftover wine that was no longer good for drinking and because I like the idea of wine in food. This step is totally optional, I have no idea if it adds to the flavor.

Get started chopping your vegetables on the morning of the day you're making the soup. This baby takes 6-8 hours in the crock pot so you do need to plan ahead.  In no particular order, you'll need: 3 to 4 cloves of garlic, minced.

1 to 1/2 cups of carrots, sliced or diced.  I used baby cut carrots and slice them into thin strips.

You will need to ignore the adorable, begging puppy. He just cannot stay out of the kitchen. He never even eats vegetables when I give them to him so I'm not sure why he's so interested in the floor.

1 to 1/2 cups diced celery. I used about 5 celery stalks.

Some potatoes, diced. I used about 6 petite red creamer potatoes.

1 to 2 small white onions, diced.

Now, the piece de resistance, the mushrooms. I find most people either love or hate mushrooms. Brian hates them, I enjoy them very much in certain applications. They are supurb in this soup. I used one 8 ounce package of pre-sliced cremini mushrooms. Since the slices were huge, I also diced them up.  I'm usually not a big fan of buying pre-cut vegetables unless they're on sale since they're so much cheaper whole. But I find that mushrooms are a huge hassle to clean and the sliced ones cost the same as the whole ones, so it makes sense to buy them sliced. Work smarter, not harder.

Pull your marianted beef out of the fridge and dump it along with the vegetables, a few dried bay leaves, some fresh cracked black pepper, and 6-8 cups of beef stock into a crock pot. A word of caution about crock pots, in order for them to work efficiently you need to fill it at least half full with delicious goodies.  I put this soup into my 6 quart crock pot and it fit beautifully. If yours is a different size, you may need to modify the recipe.  I also have this super cool crock pot (thanks MD!) that has 2 and 4 quart bowls that work with one base, so I can choose to make less soup, though I would never do that.

Set the heat to low and let it cook for 6 hours. Its in your best interest to leave your house for a few hours during this time and come home when the soup is almost done. You'll be greated with a lovely beef barley aroma that will make you want to eat the soup right then, but you really should wait for the barley. After 6 or so hours, add 1 cup of pearled barley  and cook for another hour or so until the barley is done.

After an hour, give the soup a taste to make sure the barley is cooked and everything is delicious. I had to add a pinch of salt to mine since I used low sodium broth.  Remove the bay leaves and enjoy!

This recipe made 10 1-cup servings. Estimated calories are 225 with 2 grams of fat, 20 miligrams of cholesterol, 180 milligrams of sodium. 35 grams of total carbs, 5.6 grams of dietary fiber and 15 grams of protein.