Beef Stew with Root Vegetables

Beef Stew with Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Carrots, Mushrooms, and Parsnip

The last few weeks have been exceptionally busy here; I feel like I hardly spend any time at home, and I love being home.  But I did manage to make a really rustic, hearty, and healthy beef stew.  It is tender and flavorful and just fantastic. This stew just hit the spot during those cold winter days we’ve had lately. Just complete satisfaction. Warm, like a blanket; bursting with flavor like summer. Feeds your belly and your soul. The potatoes and sweet potatoes are actually still from one of the winter shares of the CSA.  I couldn’t believe it that they’re still good.  But sure enough, if you store them properly (cool, dark place), they’re great.  And I have to comment on the beef.  I purchased it at Grassway Organics and it’s truly delicious.  I have noticed that I am able to detect a difference (sometimes) in the quality of the beef and this is by far the best I’ve tasted.

Beef for stew

Diced Beef for Stew

So this is the beef. It looks great and smells clean. Have you ever smelled meat when it’s raw? No? Too weird? I know. But sometimes I do smell it and often detect a hint of something. Not quite sure what but it’s not spoilage. This just smelled clean, almost grassy, which would make sense since these are grass fed and grass finished cows. Don’t know how else to describe it other than “clean”.
And those bones…. Oh wow…. They add so much incredible flavor. Plain water would have made it a good stew, but when I added the beef stock to this stew, it just put it over the top.

Check out the marrow. It’s that squidgy, soft part inside the bone. When cooked, it’s quite delicate in flavor and has a hint of sweetness. I saw a show once where it was served as a delicacy in some fancy NY restaurant. Just a few bones on a plate and a spoon. LOL. Delicious, I’m sure, but just a few bones… C’mon… But I’m off on a tangent. So back to this particular stew. Here is what I did.

Ingredients:
1 large onion
4-6 cloves of garlic, finely minced (it’s really good for you!)
1.5-2 lb beef, diced into large-ish pieces (see picture)
2 medium carrots, cut into large bite size pieces
3 smallish sweet potatoes, cut in large chunks
10 oz of mushrooms
1/2 large parsnip, large dice
3-4 cups beef stock (or you can use another stock or water)
1 qt diced tomatoes (or you can use 2 15oz cans of diced tomatoes)
1 lb of potatoes (Yukon Gold; cut into large chunks or if they’re small enough, I just threw them in whole)
3 bay leaves
Salt, Pepper, Cumin, Coriander, to taste; a touch of Spanish Smoked Paprika
A little parsley, for garnishing, optional

Onions Sauteing

Beef Browning

Beef, Carrots, Parsnip

Beef, Carrots, Parsnip, Sweet Potato

Home-canned diced tomatoes

Beef stew with home-made diced canned tomatoes

Beef Stew with Mushrooms

Beef Stew cooking

Beef Stew with Potatoes

Beef Stew with Root Vegetables

Steps:
1. Saute some onion. Once they are gorgeously sauteed, add the garlic and saute them too. Add spices as you go along to build the flavor, but start slow.

2. Brown the beef. If the beef chunks didn’t fit into the pot all at once, split them into several batches. You want to brown it instead of steam it.

3. Add cumin and coriander.

4. Add the carrots, parsnip, and sweet potato. Let cook for a while.

5. Add the diced tomatoes. Let cook for a while. These particular ones are the ones I canned in the summer/fall and I’m very proud of that (I’ve never canned anything or done any food preservation before). And I’ve eaten canned tomatoes for innumerable years. But I have to tell you, once I opened this jar, I could smell summer. Didn’t expect that, but all that hard work from last year really payed off.

6. Add bay leaves. I tend to add them toward the end because I think they add bitterness if they’re in too long, and I don’t like bitter stuff.

7. Add stock (or water) and simmer on low-ish heat for about a an hour and a half. Longer if the beef is still tough, so check at this point and decide. In my case, 1.5 hours was enough and the sweet potatoes and carrots didn’t disintegrate, but were nice and delicious.

8. Add potatoes (yukon gold). IF they’re large, cut them up in large chunks to match the sweet potatoes. If they’re small, just throw them in whole, I didn’t even bother with peeling (just be sure to scrub them well). There was enough liquid in my pan for the potatoes. I just pressed on them and they went under the liquid. If you need more liquid, add some stock or water.

9. Taste to make sure seasoning is to your liking and adjust what needs adjusting.