Beef Stew with Seasonal Ale

The temperature is definitely dropping. Time to bring out the hearty stews!





Ingredients

1/2 cup flour

2 Tablespoons paprika

Salt

Pepper

2 lbs stew meat, cut into 1 inch cubes

4 strips bacon

1 medium onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 bottle seasonal beer. I used a 22ounce bottle of Elysian Night Owl, a pumpkin ale that is the epitome of Autumn.

1 can diced tomatoes, with liquid

2 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, cubed

2 larger carrots, sliced

1 lb turnips, diced

1 Tablespoon oregano

1 Tablespoon thyme

Combine flour, paprika, salt, and pepper in a small bowl.

Fry bacon in large cast iron skillet. While bacon is cooking, roll each piece of beef in flour mixture. Remove bacon from skillet, add beef pieces, cooking 3-4 minutes per side.





Remove beef from pan. Add onion. Saute 5-7 minutes or until onion is translucent. Add garlic, cooking for 1 minute. Add beer, then scrape up any brown bits on the bottom of the pan. Add tomatoes, bacon, and beef back to the skillet. Simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

**Note** At this point, the skillet may be too small. I poured the contents of the skillet into an 8-quart pot and continued from there.

Add potatoes, carrots, turnips, oregano, and thyme. Simmer for 30 minutes. Serve hot.

Adapted from this recipe on Simply Recipes.

Chicken Parmesan with made-from-scratch marinara

Lisa makes the best Chicken Parmesan I've ever had, restaurant or otherwise. We don't always get this involved, but the flavors are worth it, and if you grow tomatoes and herbs, it can be very cheap.


First, pour yourself a tall frosty IPA into a frozen beer mug. This'll help you get through the extremely long cooking process.
Ain't she purdy?


For the Sauce:

Start with some fresh basil. Find a big leaf, and line up a bunch of smaller leaves in it.


Roll it like a "cigar."


Chop the basil cigar thinly, leaving you with a lovely basil chiffonade.


We bought ten lbs of "on the vine beefsteak" tomatoes. They were 88 cents a pound, and we expected a much higher yield. But that's for later.
Boil some water, and drop whole tomatoes in to boil for about 45 seconds. Remove them with a deep slotted spoon and dunk 'em in a bowl of ice water. Peel the skins off and discard.
Reserve 5 peeled tomatoes whole. Lightly coat these in olive oil, wrap them in aluminum foil, and use your burner to "roast" them. Your looking for just a bit of char all around. This will produce a somewhat "smoky" flavor, as well as help to cut down on some of the acidity.
Cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze the juice and seeds out. You can squeeze into a strainer and keep the tomato juice for other meals or for drinkin' if that's your thing.


After they're drained, plop the tomatoes into a big stock pot. Add
2 tbsp. Fresh Basil
1 tbsp. Fresh Oregano
1/2 tbsp. Marjoram
2 bay leaves
1 whole yellow onion, chopped to your liking
kosher salt and fresh black pepper to taste
1/3 bottle of red wine
And again, as much garlic as you feel like mincing. We used one head of garlic.


No need to add additional liquid. Once the tomatoes start to break down, they'll get quite wet, and you'll need to reduce the sauce for about two hours. Use a medium-to-low heat, high enough that it's still steaming, but avoid burning the sauce at the bottom of the pan. Stir occasionally.


Once it looks like a good consistency, it's done. Add cornstarch to thicken. Make sure to remove the sauce from the heat while you do this.



The Broccoli:

Cut up some fresh broccoli (about two heads)
As much garlic as you feel like mincing (we used about five cloves.)
Add to taste:
Kosher Salt
Fresh Ground Black Pepper
Paprika
Parsley
I also usually use Cajun Seasoning.
Bake in a medium-sized pyrex at 350 for about 15 minutes. Be sure to time everything so that the broccoli is done right when it's time to serve, or it will be cold.



For the Chicken Parmesan:

Mozzarella, sliced
boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Pound 'em flat, about 3/4 to 1 inch thick.
flour
"italian style" breadcrumbs (or make your own...)
Fresh grated parmesean
one whole egg and two egg whites, mixed but not beaten
On a nice big piece of counter space, set up a row of (in order):
plate with chicken breasts
vessel with flour in it
a bowl with eggs
a large plate with about 1/2 Parmesean and 1/2 bread crumbs mixed together.

Cover the chicken completely with flour, but knock off MOST of the flour. Too much and you'll lose your breading.


From the flour, dip the breast in the egg and let it drip off a little. Lay it in the breading mix, and use your fingers to pick up the breading without disturbing the chicken breast. Cover it completely and press down to make the breading stick.


Shake off the excess.


And go for round two. Once again (trying not to manhandle the chicken, that'll knock breading off) dip in in the egg mixture.


Lay it on the breading plate and repeat the process. The double-breading makes it better. I promise. More cheese = good.


Let the breaded breasts rest for at least 15 minutes to let the egg set, or again, your breading will fall off. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 and cover the bottom of a large pyrex with your homemade marinara.


In a large skillet, heat about 2 tbsp olive oil over medium to high heat. Once it's hot, carefully place your chicken into the skillet. You can tell on the edges when the breading is getting close to done. It only takes maybe 2-3 minutes.


Once they're browned, flip 'em carefully, and if necessary, add more olive oil. You can cook more than one at a time, but don't crowd the pan. These breasts were really big, so we fried them individually.


Once the delicious crust is fully formed, place the chicken into your Pyrex. You can cram 'em in, but don't let them overlap.


Bake for about 15-20 minutes. Check for doneness after 15. If they're fully cooked, add the mozzarella and cook for an additional 5 minutes, or until your cheese is melty.



Cheesy Bread:

We also made garlic cheese bread. At our new favorite grocery store, QFC, we found some cheese that didn't claim to be any particular kind of cheese, other than "handmade."

1/3 stick of butter
6 cloves garlic
sliced sourdough
fresh oregano
parsley
grated nondescript cheese
grated parmesan

Melt the butter with half of the garlic, oregano, and parsley. Brush the butter mixture over the bread until it's gone. Toast lightly. Add the two kinds of cheese and the rest of the garlic. Toast until the cheese is slightly brown.



Use all marinara (including the stuff used to bake the chicken) to put over pasta and chicken. We tend to prefer whole wheat pasta, which is actually pretty cheap at Trader Joe's.

Serve with the remaining wine that you used to make the sauce (along with 3 or 4 more bottles).



Notes:

This was the first time we'd done tomato sauce completely from scratch. All in all I think we did well, but there were a few things.
It was slightly too sweet. I'm attributing a good deal of this to the fact that we used somewhat young tomatoes (not to mention on the vine). We added no pepper flakes, which would probably have helped with this, as well as adding a little heat.

This is the most expensive tomato sauce I've ever had. I had counted on a much higher yield from 10 lbs of tomatoes, but they only made it through one meal. The particular tomatoes we bought were from a discount grocery store, and honestly didn't have much substance. Now we appreciate the difference between "on the vine" and "vine-ripened." We also opted to purchase fresh herbs, which contributed to the overall cost. Hopefully someday we can grow our own damn herbs and veggies.

Barbecue Sauce?

So every once in a while I try something completely experimental. Sometimes those experiments don't come out like they're supposed to, but are still delicious . . .

We had boneless pork ribs. We don't have a barbecue. So we did them in the oven. I decided to try making a barbecue sauce.

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The original recipe is taken from Cooks.com:

BARBECUE SAUCE:

1 c. chopped onions
1/3 c. olive or peanut oil
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
1/2 c. water
1/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 c. lemon juice
3 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp. prepared mustard
2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Cook onions in oil in saucepan until tender but not brown. Add remaining ingredients and bring to boil. Then simmer 15 minutes. Pour over meat in dish and cover.
Bake at 350°F degrees until meat is done.

This needed to be pureed. Having solid chunks (the onions) just doesn't work for a bbq sauce, at least visually. Also, the sauce seemed a bit too thin.
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Changes:

First off, parboil the ribs. We used Full Sail IPA. We had 5 ribs, and used 3 beers, plus a little bit of water to make sure the ribs were covered. We parboiled for ~45 minutes

BARBECUE SAUCE:

1 c. chopped onions (slightly less than 1 whole medium yellow onion)
1/3 c. olive oil
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce (I used ~1/3 of a 29 oz. can)
1/2 c. water (I used the beer/water from the parboiling pot)
1/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 c. lemon juice (~1 whole medium lemon)
3 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp. prepared mustard
2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 tbsp Chipotle Tobasco Sauce
4 cloves garlic, finely minced

Cook onions and garlic in oil in saucepan until tender but not brown. Add remaining ingredients and bring to boil. Then simmer 15 minutes. Pour over meat in dish and cover.
Bake at 350°F degrees until meat is done. ~20 minutes.

For bbq sauce:
This sauce was delicious, but it WASN'T a barbecue sauce. For an actual bbq sauce, I would double or even triple the amount of brown sugar and Worcestershire. I also think the addition of some white vinegar and cayenne pepper would be good too. The Chipotle Tobasco was good, but I would keep it at a low amount, as the chipotle could easily overwhelm the other flavors going on. Again, this needed to be pureed. Also, I would maybe simmer it a bit longer to further thicken it.

For regular sauce:
This was actually quite delicious, even if it wasn't really bbq sauce. As it was done this time, it would be wonderful on chicken or in a breakfast hash.

Caine's Chili

The best thing about chili, besides eating it, is how malleable the recipe is. Every time I make it, it comes out just a little different. But here are the basics:



1 lb. ground beef
1 pkg spicy italian sausage
~ 3 tbsp chili powder
1 cup dry kidney beans
1 cup dry pinto beans
1 cup dry black beans
~4 cloves garlic
1 habanero pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 six back beer (medium-dark)

• De-sausage the sausage.


• Brown the ground beef and sausage in a cast-iron skillet.


• If you're health conscious, drain the excess fat. If you're not, don't.


• Chop the garlic. You can pretty much put in as little or as much garlic as you want


• The peppers need to be fire blackened. This can be a pain in the ass if you don't have a gas range, because lighters take forever. After they've been blackened,mince them. If you don't like your chili quite as spicy, remove the seeds.


• Add beer to a large crockpot. The whole six pack may or may not be too much. If it is, have a beer.
  
• Add all ingredients and set the crockpot for medium and cover.

So you pretty much want to do all this in the morning or the night before. If you start the night before, leave the crockpot on low. At the end of the day you can turn it up to finish the cooking if you need to. The secret to chilli is letting it slow cook all day.

A note on the beer: You can use water if you like, but I've found that beer adds all kinds of great flavor. I do NOT, however, recommend using Guiness. It was just too much, made the chili much too heavy.


I know, this sounds retardedly simplistic. Like I said, chili is easy. The adventure is in changing recipes around and trying different flavors. I like my chili spicy, which is where the habanero comes in (though it does add a great subtle flavor). In the past I've even tried using ground veal instead of beef, which I don't recommend. Veal simply doesn't have enough flavor to compliment all the other things going on.

A few people that have tried this recipe have suggested diced tomatoes, which I have yet to try. Tomatoes just seem like more of a stew type of thing.


-Caine