Stew Luxury

Posted on by gr4c5

stew.jpg

Not many people like change. Very few people actually want to live outside of their comfort zone…at least not on a regular basis. Tonight’s dinner was all about reaching beyond the comfortable; moving beyond the typical. I don’t know what made me do it, but I wanted to make stew for dinner. I don’t make many soups or stews of any kind and I’m not exactly best friends with red meat. Like I said – way out of my comfort zone with this recipe. In addition, I did not want to make just any stew, but chunky, healthy, yummy beef stew since I haven’t been feeling well. No pressure! Thanks to the food network I made something I could dress up or down (read- make expensive or cheaper). Here is the luxury version and in parenthesis, the cheaper version. I went for a combination of the two. Kisa had seconds despite the fact he is a self-proclaimed squash hater.
Stew for You

  • olive oil
  • fresh, fragrant rosemary (dried)
  • flour
  • Spanish onion
  • fresh thyme (dried)
  • marsala wine
  • garlic, minced fine
  • butternut squash
  • sundried tomatoes, chopped (diced tomatoes)
  • beef broth (water)
  • stew beef cut into 2″ cubes, dredged in s&p and flour (cut into 1″ cubes)
  • portabella mushrooms, chopped (white button mushrooms)
  • parsley – fresh, chopped (fresh no matter what)
  • garlic bread

Butternut squash was an interesting twist, but you could go for standard-stew-inclusions like potatoes. I would like to try sweet potatoes in addition, or a combination of everything. I added the mushrooms even though they weren’t called for in the recipe. One other note – I would omit the salt in the beef dredge because the beef broth is salty enough (even if you use low sodium, which I prefer). Sop up the extra stew juice with the crusty garlic bread and enjoy a winter’s feast!

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Published by gr4c5

I write. I read. I cook. I run. That's me, in a nutshell.

7 thoughts on “Stew Luxury”

  1. And here I was wondering what I would make for my lunch for the rest of the week. Nothing I would change but I think I would add finely diced celery and carrot. I might even try adding in some fennel, but thats mee. Been roasting, stewing, braising and adding fennel to eveyrthing lately, love the extra flavor it adds. Used it in my veggie roast for xmas and it was a huge hit. Now I’m hungry…..thanks! 🙂

  2. Celery and carrot make this recipe more French than Italian, but a little fennel would definitely work. I’m not a big fan of it (unless it’s with orange and red onion) – but then again I never liked black licorice either! LOL 😉

  3. the snow on your blog page is driving me nuts….at first I thought I was just more drunk than I realized but then I watched it fly over the picture in the last entry and realized it was the snow from the top. you have no idea how weird it is to watch pieces of letters disappear and reappear with no real warning.

  4. The snow was something that came with the page (only available until 1/2) but now it’s gone. It worked well with the “somewhere out there” pic that I took (and have been using as my header). I know what you mean, though. I was rereading my diner post and all of a sudden it started snowing in the diner! Very distracting!

  5. I made this stew….wow, just wonderful. I added roasted fennel and 1/2 acorn squash and 1/2 butternut squash and since I was in a roasting frenzy, I roasted those as well before adding them to the soup.So aside from that I stayed true to the recipe. Beautiful!

  6. The picture reminds me of two big bug eyes and a nose. You see food … I see a face. I think that qualifies me as a bit left of normal, don’t you? HA!

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