Irish Stew

Red meat, check. Potatoes, check. Beer, check. Irish Beef Stew has the makings of a perfect meal for my boyfriend, and I love it because you only have to clean one pot in the end, and there are a few veggies.

He has been asking me to make this meal since I moved in with him, and last week he enjoyed eating the fresh stew and even deigned to eat the leftovers.

My one warning is that Guinness stout makes the stew a bit bitter, and I would pick a milder beer next time.

Irish Beef Stew

Ingredients

2 T Vegetable Oil

2 T flour

1 lb beef stew meat (lean)

1 Chopped Onion

2 large potatoes, peeled and diced

4 Sliced Carrots

2 Cups Sliced Mushrooms

6 garlic cloves minced

1 6 ounce can tomato paste (not sauce...I've made that mistake before)

2 cups beef broth

12 ounce Irish stout beer

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/4 cup fresh minced parsley

Steps

1. In a large pot, heat oil. Coat beef in flour and fry in oil until browned on all sides. Place meat in a bowl and set aside. Place mushrooms and onions in the pot, cook until onions are tender.

2. Place the beef back in the pot, stir in the tomato paste, garlic, beef broth and beer. Add potatoes and carrots. Cover and simmer on low for 1 hour.

3. Mix cornstarch with 1 tablespoon water. Pour into the stew and stir. Simmer until sauce has thickened. Sprinkle with fresh parsley. (Serves 6)

Tweaked from Allrecipes

Peas and Carrot Soup with Dumplings

On Sunday night I served peas and carrot soup with dumplings for dinner, and I know it was filling because my boyfriend didn’t ask where the meat was.

Now dumplings is a bit of a misnomer in this case, because the dumplings were just balls of buttermilk biscuit batter, but when you add them to the soup they get soft on the outside and stay flaky on the inside, deliciously satisfying.

I served roasted red skin potatoes on the side, which were also amazing.

Peas and Carrot Soup with Dumplings

Ingredients

2 T olive oil

3 T butter

4 sliced carrots

2 ribs celery

1 onion

2 T flour

4 cups vegetable or chicken stock

1 T mustard

1 cup frozen peas

2 T parsley

Biscuit mix

Steps

1. Slice the carrots, celery and onion.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large pot, add the butter.

3. When the butter melts, add carrots, celery, onion, peas and mustard. Cover and cook for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. It will smell so good!

4. Season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with flour. Stir for 1 minute.

5. Add chicken or vegetable stock.

6. Prepare biscuit dough (I used the just add water mix) and combine with parsley. Form the batter into small balls and drop into soup.

7. Cover the pot and cook 8 to 10 minutes, until dumplings are firm.

Here are my steps for the potatoes on the side:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Slice 2 1bs potatoes.

3. Arrange potatoes on a greased pan.

4. Pour ¼ cup olive oil over the potatoes, season with Italian seasoning and pepper.

5. Bake uncovered for 40 minutes.

The soup recipe is adapted from Rachael Ray in Everyday Living. The potatoes are vegan and the soup is vegetarian. I did not end up with any leftover potatoes, but I did heat up leftover soup the next day. The dumplings stay surprisingly flaky even in the microwave, but reheating did not go so well and I burnt my tongue. I would recommend using the stove top if you have time!

A Meal that Keeps on Giving

My food and nutrition teacher in high school said when it came to cooking for two, it was cheaper to eat out. Pretty much every word that came out of her mouth was wrong, and this was no exception.

When my boyfriend and I started dating, he introduced me to this thing called “appetizers.” You eat them before you eat. His love of appetizers and my love of desserts produced hefty bills for our meals out. But this year we moved in together, and now that the bills are on us, we make an effort to eat at home and save some dough.

I won’t pretend eating in is easier than eating out, but you do save money. Sure the grocery bill is going to be higher when you start buying more than cereal and chips, but those meals turn into lunches later, which means that 1 1b of ground beef is providing three meals at least.

Here’s an example of a recent meal I made for us, which so far has provided two dinners and two lunches:

Peppers and Potatoes Beef Skillet

Ingredients

1 T Olive Oil

1 onion

1 1b ground beef

1 1b baby red skin potatoes

2 bell peppers

1.5 cups frozen peas

15 ounce can tomato sauce

12 ounce bag egg noodles

Steps

1. Slice the onion and potatoes.

2. In a large skillet heat the olive oil on medium-high and cook the sliced onion for about 3 minutes.

3. Add the beef and brown, about 7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and move beef and onions to large bowl.

4. Boil water and cook egg noodles in saucepan.

5. Cook potatoes in skillet until tender, about 8 minutes. Stir in bell peppers and cook for an extra 8 minutes. Stir in beef, onions, frozen peas, tomato sauce and 1 cup water.

6. Cook for about 8 minutes.

Serve beef mixture on top of egg noodles.

This recipe is tweaked from a Rachael Ray recipe in Everyday Living. I strongly suggest adding Italian seasoning to the beef and onions if you make it, the tomato sauce just did not bring in enough flavor. I do plan to make this again, though, because it is filling and creates plenty of leftovers! =)