Beef Stew
As you can tell from looking at some of my previous posts, I do the Slow Carb diet from time to time. It’s a great diet if you can stick to it. For me that is a little difficult at times, mainly due to getting bored with some of the recipes. To counter that I have been trying to build a repository of recipes that I can easily make into slow carb friendly foods. I have to get creative on some of them. Last week I was going to do my curry, slow carb style, but ended up doing curried chicken fingers with homemade hummus. Sadly, between my wife and I, the food did not last very long. I was stuck without a lunch for the next week. What to do?
Enter the beef stew. I needed something cheap that would last a while, but still tasted delicious. While walking through Walmart we found the beef for stewing on sale. I got almost 2 pounds for around $7. All that we needed from there was some veggies to kick it up a notch.
At first I was skeptical that I could make a beef stew without potatoes. Who ever heard of a potato-less beef stew? The starch from the potatoes tends to help as a thickening agent, with those missing there would be no possible way to keep it stew-like. The solution came in the form of canned beans. Using the undrained cans allowed the beans themselves to act as thickening agents. (I actually use white beans to make faux-potatoes when I make roast chicken, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch.) The end result was freaking amazing.
- 1.5 to 2 lbs beef for stewing
- 1 Large yellow onion, diced
- 3-5 Stalks celery, diced
- 3-4 Cloves diced garlic
- 12 oz baby carrots
- 2 cans great northern beans, undrained
- Start by heating a large soup pot on high heat.
- Add 2 Tbsp olive oil and throw in the celery, onion, and garlic.
- Salt the veggies while browning.
- Stir until caramelized.
- While the veggies are cooking, heat a large cast iron skillet on high heat.
- Add 2 Tbs olive oil and sear the beef after seasoning well (use your favorite seasoning salt mix).
- When the meat is seared, add it to the veggies.
- Deglaze the hot pan with water and add the water to the soup pot.
- Add the cans of beans and the carrots.
- Add enough water to cover the veggies and meat at least 3 inches, you can be judicious with how much water you use, determined by how thick you want the stew to be.
- Let the whole thing simmer on medium to medium-low heat for 1 and a half hours, or until the beef is nice and tender.
- If you want to thicken it more without adding carbs, you can use guar gum. It's calorie and carb-free. I seasoned my stew with some parsley flakes and oregano, along with the standard salt and pepper. Enjoy!