OK, there's no Hobbits or Hairy feet in this stew. But there is a shitload of vitamins and the taste rocks. This is a recipe when you have a cheap hunk of meat and would like to eat it without feeling like you're chewing on your sneaker after a workout.
Basic Ingredients
3-4 Pounds of Cheap Chuck Roast (I got mine for $2.99/pound - cheaper than stew meat)
Vegetable Stock - Do NOT use boullion or prepared veggie stock. If you use this crap - which is salt, MSG, and chemicals - you deserve a kick in the ass. Instead, here's what you should be doing ALL freaking year: EVERY time you use veggies, take the scraps: apple cores, carrot ends, onion skins, outside leaves of lettuce etc - and put them in a ziploc bag in your freezer. When you have three bags full, boil them down and strain, and freeze the liquid. THIS is the veggie stock for soups, stews, and cooking.
Cheap Wine, the kind you'd drink from a dixie cup and that would embarrass your girlfriend. (I use Carlo Rossi Burgundy - it's best for this recipe)
6 large Portobello Mushroom caps (loose and dry is better and cheaper than packaged stuff)
Parsnips (if not in season, yeah, you can use potatoes and/or turnips - but not rutabagas)
Cracked Pepper
A little olive oil.
Directions
1) Get out the soup pot. Fill 1/3 way with veggie stock and red wine in a 2:1 ratio. Set heat to medium-low.
2) Chop up parsnips (small chunks - maybe 1/2 inch square) and throw in pot. Chop up Mushrooms, throw in pot.
3) While this is all heating, take your cheap hunk of meat and post a selfie of you eating it raw (optional.) Cut it into pieces no bigger than 1 x 2 inches. Sprinkle with pepper.
4) Heat a little olive oil in your non-stick frying pan over high heat. Toss in meat a bit at a time, searing the outsides for about 2 minutes, and then removing to the soup pot. Do this until you've seared all the meat.
5) Cook the stew over medium-low heat for an hour or so.
I promise, you will never turn your nose up at cheap cuts of meat again. In fact, you might find that you can afford to eat meat again!
Basic Ingredients
3-4 Pounds of Cheap Chuck Roast (I got mine for $2.99/pound - cheaper than stew meat)
Vegetable Stock - Do NOT use boullion or prepared veggie stock. If you use this crap - which is salt, MSG, and chemicals - you deserve a kick in the ass. Instead, here's what you should be doing ALL freaking year: EVERY time you use veggies, take the scraps: apple cores, carrot ends, onion skins, outside leaves of lettuce etc - and put them in a ziploc bag in your freezer. When you have three bags full, boil them down and strain, and freeze the liquid. THIS is the veggie stock for soups, stews, and cooking.
Cheap Wine, the kind you'd drink from a dixie cup and that would embarrass your girlfriend. (I use Carlo Rossi Burgundy - it's best for this recipe)
6 large Portobello Mushroom caps (loose and dry is better and cheaper than packaged stuff)
Parsnips (if not in season, yeah, you can use potatoes and/or turnips - but not rutabagas)
Cracked Pepper
A little olive oil.
Directions
1) Get out the soup pot. Fill 1/3 way with veggie stock and red wine in a 2:1 ratio. Set heat to medium-low.
2) Chop up parsnips (small chunks - maybe 1/2 inch square) and throw in pot. Chop up Mushrooms, throw in pot.
3) While this is all heating, take your cheap hunk of meat and post a selfie of you eating it raw (optional.) Cut it into pieces no bigger than 1 x 2 inches. Sprinkle with pepper.
4) Heat a little olive oil in your non-stick frying pan over high heat. Toss in meat a bit at a time, searing the outsides for about 2 minutes, and then removing to the soup pot. Do this until you've seared all the meat.
5) Cook the stew over medium-low heat for an hour or so.
I promise, you will never turn your nose up at cheap cuts of meat again. In fact, you might find that you can afford to eat meat again!
