Recipe: Vegan Beef and Stout Stew

Stout beer. Mmm delicious. Pity most brands use isinglass in the fining process. Dang. BUT I looked and looked (it was hard, because I'm not too knowledgable on beer brands) and found that Coopers makes a vegan friendly stout beer! (Bonus points for being Aussie owned and made). And thus this stew was born. (Inspired by this recipe from Martha Stewart).

For the beef part I used this stuff. Found it in the freezer in an Asian supermarket. I'm not entirely sure of it's brand. There are words everywhere. I think it's essentially frozen rehydrated TVP chunks, and it pretty much has the same texture as the type of cow you'd buy to slow cook. Except you don't have to break your jaw chewing on it. (Ew.)

Vegan Beef and Stout Stew

Serves 6

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups of beef style pieces, defrosted (or rehydrated beef style TVP slices)

2 tbsp wholemeal flour*

170g tomato paste

500g potatoes, diced in 2cm bits

1 large onion, diced

5 garlic cloves, sliced

1 carrot, diced

1 celery stalk, diced

400mL beef style stock (I use massel)

220mL vegan stout beer

2 cups frozen peas, defrosted

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Saute onion, garlic, carrot, celery and potatoes in some oil or water in a large stock pot for about 5 minutes. Add flour and stir until it starts to brown. Stir in stock, tomato paste and stout beer so no lumps form. It will thicken a bit. You may need to add extra water if it's too thick. I added about an extra cup. (*I used 3 tbsp flour and I think it was too much). Stir in defrosted beef chunks.

Bring to a boil and then turn down and simmer for about 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Add peas. Cook until heated through and sauce has thickened. Taste for seasoning.

I served mine on bowtie pasta because I like pasta with stews. But you could try quinoa, brown rice...anything else really :)

A stew is the ultimate comfort food and this one doesn't disappoint. The gravy is rich and thick and we wanted to eat the whole pot! I reckons the leftovers will make a GREAT pie. So that is what I'm going to do. If the gravy isn't pie-thickness I'll just reheat it on the stove with some cornflour or something, but I don't think it'll need it. Making leftovers into a pie with perhaps a steamed green thing on the side will stretch it out to at least 8 servings I think. Depends how much pie you can eat ;). 

This reminds me a lot of something my mum used to make sometimes, except I remember disliking it immensely. Don't know why. I guess tastes change.

I would definately serve this to family, friends, anybody who enjoyed a good stew. If they didn't see me eating it I'm sure they would all think it was the 'real deal'. If you aren't a fan of fake meat, try using tofu, tempeh, muchrooms, or even a bean. I think mushrooms would be especially delicious (and much more accessible to everyone! I know not all of us live in a city with plentiful asian food marts.)  

Moving time!

Nadine and I recently got approved to rent A REAL HOUSE. With like, a backyard (and a front yard!) and most importantly -  A KITCHEN! With a PANTRY. You have no idea (or maybe you do!) at how much of a luxury a proper pantry is. I am very excited. My new garden will have room for vegetables and it has a garden shed in which I'll have to store a lawn mower.

So, to celebrate, instead of beans and rice (pretty much what we'll be living on as we move) I made a pot pie from Veganomicon. The 'Cauliflower and Mushroom Potpie with Black Olive Crust' which we have indeed made before, though I could not remember it. Since cauliflower is so expensive at the moment we changed the ingredients a little. We were going to use brocolli instead but the tiny lone stalk left at woolies was very sick looking, so I went for the sugarloaf cabbage instead. It was on special :) I like cabbage. And I used some nice portobello mushrooms which were reducted to clear.

And it was a delicious and fitting way to celebrate the arrival of a next home.

Ginormous farmer's market vegetable stew

I spent my Sunday listening to records and fiddling about the house. I love watching the needle touch down.

It was lovely until the neighbour decided to deafen me and everyone in Perth with her doof doof. Oh well, I played records all day yesterday too :)

This is today's farmer's markets haul. From bottom left clockwise: the best bananas in the world, 1/4 jap pumpkin, celery, kale, brazil nuts, bunya nuts (no idea of what to do with these yet!), parsnip, turnips and potato.

Almost all of the above turned into a gigantic stew!

BIG HONKING ROOT VEGETABLE STEW.

Serves 6 (big)

Ingredients:

400g turnips

700g potatoes

200g carrot

600g pumpkin

250g parsnip

250g celery (about 4 stalks), sliced

1 1/2 cups cooked kidney beans

500g brown onion, quartered

5 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

2 tbsp whole peppercorns, crushed or cracked

1 thyme stem left whole

2cm long stem of rosemary left whole

3 bay leaves

2 heaped tsp wholegrain mustard

8 cups weak chicken style stock (or water)

125g short pasta (any shape!)

The method is very simple, as with all stew/soup type dealies.

First, I peeled things that needed peeling (I peel parsnips because we find the skin bitter, and I peeled the larger turnip but left the skin on the smaller one as per the Internet's reccomendations).

Chop everything into large chunks, try to keep the size uniform.

Put everything into a large stock pot, except the pasta shapes and cooked kidney beans. (As you can see, mine was ALMOST too small. [5L] I could have used a smaller potato or something!)

Give it a gentle stir, so as not to overflow the pot, unless yours is ginormous.

Bring pot to a boil, then turn down and simmer for half an hour.

(At this point I turned it off and left it for about an hour while I went to pick Nadine up from work, so if you don't need to leave it just check to see if the vegetables are cooked.)

The pumpkin will be falling apart - this is good. If you want your pumpkin chunks to stay whole, don't put them in at the beginning.

I found that it was too watery still, so I thickened it with a bit of cornflour. This is optional.

Bring back to a boil and add the pasta and beans. Cook until pasta is ready (about as long as the packet says!) Cooking the pasta in it also helps to thicken the gravy!

Serve and enjoy! I served ours with some sauteed kale and silverbeet, but feel free to go for bread or something.

-------------------

This was so hearty and flavourful. If you aren't into spicy, cut down the pepper to half. It was very peppery, just how I like it! The herbs were light enough for us to be able to taste each different vegetable, which was good. I liked how the pumpkin turned into mush and spread through the whole thing, making it soupy. 

For something that I just made up on the spot, I'm quite happy with the results! I think this is the first time I've had turnips cooked properly. Last time I tried they were pretty thick and raw haha. I like them. I'll probably buy more next week and do something different.

This would be awesome to chuck in a slow cooker to come home to after work! Unfortunately I don't have one. One day I will, when I have more storage!

School's over!

As the title implies, I finished my last class at tafe today! Hooray! Now I have a Certificate 3 in Horticulture (assuming it gets sent to me in the mail) which is very exciting. It means I'm qualified...for stuff. Hmm. It was quite an anti climactic end to the semester. We don't get a 'graduation' or anything. Oh well - I passed and that is all that matters. What am I supposed to do now? There's nothing to procrastinate for! Relax, I suppose.
I do have a job - I've left the fruit shop and got a job at a large production nursery up north a little ways. It's not particularly exciting (I'm a nursery hand on the maintenance team - weeding, pruning, you name it) but I really like it. It's hard labourious work usually in the full sun, but I enjoy a challenge. Never drunk so much water in my life. At the moment I'm doing 2 days per week but I'm almost 100% sure I'll be full time after the little holiday we are going to take. I should find out the major details of that tomorrow :)

Anyway enough of the boring stuff.

My sage is starting to look lovely! Almost as soon as I potted it when I bought it it pretty much died. It just shrivelled away and now it's just suddenly exploded with lovely leaves which smell and taste amazing.

My tomatoes have all got little tomatoes hanging off them now. Some even have 2 or 3! I'm very excited for a tomato. It's been windy lately but none have toppled over yet. Though today I will stake them I think, just in case the wind gets worse. I don't want to lose them before I get to eat them!

Nadine cooked the other night and made this amazing 'Peanutty Pumpkin Stew' from Vegan on the Cheap by Robin Robertson. This book wins the prize for being the most used recently! This stew was so good. So so good. She made it with black quinoa as a base but we had leftovers another night and I cooked up some millet grain as the base instead for something different. Both went equally as well with it. It's basically this very spicy satay-y delicious mess of vegetables and chickpeas. Yum. 

I also made a yummy dessert recently but I'll put it in a separate post because otherwise there will be too much on this one. :)

Bits and pieces...

Spring has sprung and hs brought with it many many little capsicum seedlings...My radishes are powering on and most of my beans have sprouted! It's all very exciting. I sowed some tomato seeds the other day so I'm waiting for them to pop up too. Yay for fresh home grown produce!

Nadine made dinner the other night - Shepards Pie from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch. It's a pretty awesome recipe...

Nadine bought me a tea-sub when I was sick...It's a freaking sub marine tea infuser!!!!

Tonight's dinner was this Millet Garden Medley. Pretty delicious and very cheap! Made about 6 large/ 8 regular sized servings. That's like, a whole week!

I also sewed a skirt! From an actual pattern! (Never done that before.) It's pretty good. Fits just right :)

Pumpkin, Potato and Kidney Bean Stew

I got this potato from the farmers markets. It was called a red-something...only $3 a kilo! I was hoping it would be red inside (I've seen purple ones in seed catalogues) but unfortunately it was white. It tasted like a regular potato but with an earthier skin (I never peel mine).

So I decided to put it in a stew - I adapted this recipe, and changed most of it to suit me, I think.

Pumpkin, Potato and Kidney Bean Stew

Serves 8 with grain base or 10 without

Ingredients

4 cups cooked kidney beans (about 2 cups dried)

1 cup stock (I used Massel Chicken Style)

Oil for frying

4 cups roughly diced onion

4 cups mixed diced: pumpkin, sweet potato, regular potato

1 cup chopped carrot (about 2 medium)

1 chopped jalapeno chili*

2 tsp dried sage

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp smoked paprika

3 cups cooked tomatoes (about 1 800g can)

Method

1. Put some oil in a large stock pot and add onions, carrot, chilli and pumpkin/potatoes until onion starts to soften - about ten minutes.

2. Add beans to this mixture. Add sage, thyme, and paprika and then tomatoes and some of the stock. Add more later if it starts to dry out a little. Stir well and bring to a boil.

3. Cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer until vegetables are tender.

*It could have done with 2 or more!

I served ours with a mixture of unpearled barley and brown rice. I did 2 parts rice to one part barley.

It also would have a little tastier with just sweet potato or pumpkin - or a few extra herbs. I also forgot to put pepper in.

Unpearled barley is whole barley. It takes a LONG time to cook (about 1.5 hours) but I think it's worth it. I cook in the same way as dried beans: Put barley and water to cover in saucepan, bring to boil. Turn off heat and let stand for a few hours (at least 1). Drain barley and put new water in. Bring to boil again then turn down and simmer until tender (this really does take about 1.5 hours - maybe 2!). I just like making life difficult for myself :) It took a few forkfuls to get used to - just remember to chew it well, and not breathe in the husk. We really like the taste and texture, actually. I love regular pearled barley but this adds a little more.

I'm actually trying to gain some weight (only 4-5kg or so) and I figure I should eat more carbs than I burn. Unpearled barley, brown rice, lots of bread etc. They are cheaper for me to buy than good fats such as avocado, peanut butter, other nuts. 1kg of this unpearled barley only cost me $2.60! I'll still be eating my nuts etc occasionally when I can afford it too though.

Creten stew (red wine, seitan, onion and orange stew)

This screamed at me to cook it the other night. I love red wine, I love tofu how could I say no? (From what the hell does a vegan eat anyway? blog)

I was going to make it in my tagine...but I exploded it. Stupid me decided to pour some cold water on it when the oil ran out for frying tofu in. Big crack, thought I was going to die. But it's okay, no shrapnel actually flew at me. Heh. I was extremely pissed off though, I shall have to buy a replacement. It was a gift that I only got to use once! SO I made it in a large stock pot with a tight fitting lid on the stove top.

I couldn't find small white pearl onions so I used brown pickling onions instead, and cut them in half because they were quite big. Ideally I'd have liked to leave them whole, but oh well. I also used tofu, because I've never seen seitan here, or vital wheat gluten to make it. Yet. I'm getting there.

As you can see from the top picture I used Yalumba Y Series Merlot to cook this with. It's a medium bodied wine which I love - but it was probabaly too strong for this dish. However, as I said - I love red wine! So to me, it was perfect. If I was to cook this for family I might use half wine/half stock.

While this was cooking, the whole house smelled of...sangria! The orange/wine combination was definately dominating. Deliciously dominating. I can't wait until spring, or just a warm day when I can make up some sangria! We bought a nice glass jug (which accidentally turned out to be made in Spain, har har) months ago specifically to make said sangria, but it got cold. :( I make a gooooood sangria. When I do make it, I'll be sure to post a recipe.

We served the stew on top of penne pasta, because that's what I have. It would be good on any shape of pasta, or some other grain. I think pasta would be best though.