Irish Beef Stew

Yes, I'm a day late (and a lot of dollars short!), better late than never I always hear people say.  So, how was everyone's St. Patrick's Day?  Mine was just another day.  Got up at 6:45 am, took my 5 year old to school, came home, posted to my blog, worked out, took a shower, updated my accounts on Goodbudget.com, played with my 2 year old, did some school work, did laundry, searched through Pinterest for new recipe ideas, made a St. Patrick's Day dessert, picked up my 5 year old from school, took my mother-in-law back to Walmart, didn't get back home until 5 pm, stressed about whether I'd have enough time to make a tasty Irish beef stew before bedtime, finally started making dinner, ate dinner, cleaned the dishes, got my little boys in bed, watched the Voice, caught up on the NO new details of missing flight 370 and finally crawled into bed around 11:15 pm.  Yup, that's pretty much a normal day for me.

Speaking of flight 370, are you as addicted to the story as I am.  I drove to Denver (that's a 4 hour drive one way) and back this past weekend and pretty close to the whole drive was spent listening to CNN on Sirius radio hoping for some exciting new information.  But it's all just speculation, its getting very frustrating, I can't imagine how the families of the missing people must feel right now.  Even as frustrating as it is for me, I can't stop myself from watching or listening to CNN hoping they have finally found the plane.  How does a huge plane like that go missing?  I mean, my iPhone has an app on it that allows me to find it if it's missing, shouldn't these planes have the same thing?  Log in to your iCloud, send out a ping and voila, the missing plane is found.  OK, not that easy?  Fine, I'll let all the investigators do their jobs and keep my mouth shut.  I do pray that they find it soon, for the sake of the families.  It is truly a heartbreaking situation.

For St. Patrick's Day we had Irish beef stew for dinner.  I knew I'd never get my 5 year old and my 2 year old to eat corned beef and cabbage so I tried for something a little more kid friendly for our dinner.  This was the first time I had ever made Irish beef stew and let me tell you...it was amazing!  I think you'll enjoy the recipe.  Don't wait for the next St. Patrick's Day to roll around, make this any night of the week, any month of the year!

Irish Beef Stew

(my Instagram picture, one beer for the recipe, one for the cook to drink!)

Ingredients

2.5 lbs of stew beef, cut into 1/2" by 1/2" pieces 

about 1/3 cup flour

3 Tablespoons of canola oil, divided

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cups white mushrooms, chopped

3 teaspoons minced garlic

6 oz tomato paste

4 cups beef broth

3 bay leaves

12 oz Killian's Irish Red beer

2 large russet potatoes, chopped

4 medium carrots, chopped

Parsley for garnish

Directions

1. Heat 2T canola oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.  Toss meat in flour, lightly coat and shake off excess.

2. Brown meat in pot in batches.  You don't want to crowd the meat, you want it to brown not boil.  I did mine in 3 different batches.  Cook meat for about 2-3 minutes, just until browned.  Remove from pot and set aside.

3. Heat 1T oil, add onions, mushrooms and garlic.  Cook until onions become translucent, stirring often, about 5 minutes.  Return meat to pot with tomato paste, broth, bay leaves and beer.  Mix well.

4. Add potatoes and carrots.  Bring stew to a light boil and allow stew to simmer for about an hour on medium-low heat, until veggies are soft and meat is tender.  Remove bay leaves before serving.

*Note: My stew was the perfect thickness after an hour of simmering.  If your stew is too thin mix 1 Tablespoon of corn starch with 2-3 Tablespoons of water in a bowl and mix into the stew right before serving.  Allow corn starch to thicken the stew to desired thickness and then serve.  It should only take 3-5 minutes to get it to thicken up a lot!

Crockpot Chicken Enchilada Soup

This time of year induces my soup making mode.  I don't know what it is about the cooler weather that makes me want to throw ingredients into my Crockpot and then have warm tasty soup waiting for me a few hours later.  If you are like me then this is a great recipe to try.  Its a little spicy so if you have little ones in your house you might want to cut the amount of cayenne pepper by half.

Turkey Parmesan Meatloaf

I saw a recipe on Pinterest for Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf and it sounded really yummy.  Unfortunately, I didn't have ground chicken in my freezer at the time, but I did have a pound of ground turkey so Turkey Parmesan Meatloaf was invented.  This meatloaf was really good.  It had a lot of flavor and I really enjoyed the taste of the pasta sauce in place of ketchup.  Give it a try, I think it will be a family favorite.

Shredded Beef Tacos

Yes. . . that's the answer to the question that is going through your mind right now, "do those tacos taste as good as they look?"  And the answer is '"Yes!"  You want to know what's even better about these tacos than how good they look?  They are SOOOOO simple to make.  Throw a few things in the crockpot and in 4-6 hours you have delicious shredded beef for these amazing tacos.

Grilled Guacamole & Cheese Sandwich

Let me just tell you how adorable my 3 year old son is.  One day we were out running errands and we stopped for lunch.  Normally his "go-to" lunch is a corn dog, but this place didn't have corn dogs so I asked him if he wanted a "grilled cheese sandwich" and he said, "mom, I'm not a girl."  A little confused I told him I knew he wasn't a girl and asked him again if he wanted a grilled cheese sandwich.  This time he said, "well don't they have a boy cheese sandwich since I'm a boy."  Apparently when I say 'grilled' it sounds like 'girl' to him.  So now, in our house, when our 3 year old is around, we call our 'grilled cheese sandwiches' 'boy cheese sandwiches' instead.

This sandwich is really tasty.  What could be better than melty cheese and creamy guacamole?  Not much, if you ask me.

Sun Dried Tomato Roasted Garlic Pasta

I can tell you right now that one of the very first sections to fill completely up with all 7 recipes will be the pasta section.  I adore pasta, creamy pasta, red sauce pasta, pasta with veggies, etc.  It's comforting, tasty and filling.  A funny little story. . . I shop mostly at Walmart because I live in a tiny town and don't have many options, plus, its cheaper!  I was making one of my weekly visits to Walmart to get groceries.  I was standing in the pasta isle, I was kind of spaced out.  My 9 month old was getting cranky and I couldn't quite concentrate on what I needed to purchase as far as pastas went.  As I stood there I watched about 4 or 5 other shoppers pass by, they quickly grabbed the Walmart brand of pasta and then rushed off again.  Now to the funny part of the story, as I stood there wondering what I needed to buy I kept going over the prices of the pastas. . . did you know that Barilla pasta is cheaper than the Walmart brand?  At least it was at my Walmart (in Cedar City, UT) on the day I was there.  So I bought several different kinds of pasta, all Barilla brand.  Next time you are shopping check to see if your store brand is more expensive.  I think we are just trained to think that because it's a store brand it's cheaper. . . crazy isn't it?

Woodsy Vegetable Parmesan Orzo

Is 'woodsy' a word?  When I was trying to think of how to explain the mixture of vegetables in this recipes that was the first word that came to mind.  Maybe 'earthy' would be better?  I don't know!  But I liked 'woodsy' so I went with it.  This recipe was just something I threw together one night for dinner.  I had a mixture of vegetables that I needed to use up from my Bountiful Basket.  If you don't know what Bountiful Basket it is check out the link and see if they are in your area. . .  I promise you will LOVE it.    Back to the recipe. . . this was so surprisingly good when I had the first bite.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Buffalo Chicken Tacos

I am a huge fan of buffalo chicken.  Honestly my favorite is the appetizer from Apple Bee's, the buffalo chicken bites with blue cheese dressing for dipping...yum-e!  So, when I saw a recipe for buffalo chicken tacos my first thought was, "Oh that's going to be so good." and my second thought was, "Why didn't I ever think of that?" (I say this to myself a lot when I see creative things that I wish I had thought of!)  I kept putting off making these tacos because I'm really the only one in the house that likes buffalo chicken.  My hubby likes his chicken wings (or chicken bites) in a sweet sauce, usually like a sweet BBQ.  Finally one night, when my hubby was away for work, I made them.  I only coated the pieces of chicken I was going to eat in the wing sauce, it actually worked out well.  My 3 year old ate chicken bites with ranch dressing, my 13 year old had chicken tacos and I had buffalo chicken tacos!

Grilled Peanut Butter & Banana Sandwich

You know what's really yum-e?  A peanut butter sandwich with sliced bananas on it.  You know what's even better?  Put some butter on both sides of the sandwich and throw it on a hot grill (or grill pan, which is what I use since there is a LOT of snow out there surrounding my grill).  The peanut butter gets all gooey and warm, the bananas get soft and sweet and the bread gets toasted and buttery.  Yup, its practically the best thing on earth!  No wonder Elvis ate it all the time!

Celery Soup with Caramelized Apples

Almost a year ago I was introduced to an awesome thing called Bountiful Baskets.  Have you heard of them?  It's wonderful!  Click the link above if you haven't heard about them.  You get fresh produce at a fraction of the price you would pay for it at the store.  I LOVE it!!!

So what does Bountiful Baskets have to do with celery soup?  Well, one week I received two bags of celery.  I'm not a big celery eater, in fact I really don't like it at all.  The texture is not appealing to me.  Usually the only way I will eat it is with peanut butter on it, and even then I'm forcing myself to finish it.  When I received the two bags of celery I was a little disappointed, I really assumed it would go to waste, especially without my hubby here to help eat it.  But then I stumbled onto a recipe for soup, celery soup!  I figured it was worth it to give it a try since either way it would go to waste, either with me not eating it or me using it to make soup and then not liking it.  Surprisingly enough it was so GOOD!  It must've been the pears and the apples that were added to it, or maybe it because I just don't like the text of celery, whatever the reason, this soup was really wonderful!

Caramelized Onion & Almond Quinoa

Quinoa, oh quinoa, where have you been all my life?  Quinoa is my new found best friend.  I love the simplistic-ness (yes I just made that word up) of it.  It blends so well with so many different flavor combinations.  I haven't tried yet, but I bet you could even sweeten it up and make a dessert out of it. (note to self...try this idea SOON!)  Did you know that quinoa is actually a seed?  Here I was thinking it was a grain.  Quinoa is gluten-free and loaded with iron and protein!  And it's considered a "super food," at least on some of the Super Foods lists I have looked at on the web.  If you haven't tried it yet give it a taste.  I found quinoa at my local health food store and they sell it in bulk, which, now that I know I love it, I need to go back and by pounds more of it! :)

Raspberry Balsamic Crockpot Chicken

Like everyone else in the world that cooks with chicken, I'm constantly looking for new and exciting ways to prepare it.  So, when I ran across an Onion Rosemary Pork recipe from SkinnyMs.com I immediately thought it would be pretty darn tasty with chicken as well.  With a little tweak here and a little addition there I came up with this very yum-e recipe.  The next time I make it I will add more chicken broth than I did this time.  I've made that addition to the recipe posted here already.  I'm a sucker for lots of extra juice to pour over my rice.

Baked Potato Soup

This is a recipe I have been making for years now.  The whole family loves it and requests it often.  I love it because not only does it taste good, but its also a very cheap dinner.  You can't get much cheaper than a bag of potatoes.  Another great thing about this recipe???  I've adapted it from my Cooking Light cookbook so its light in the calorie and fat sections!  Woohoo you can't ask for more than that!

Sweet Potato Enchiladas

One of my favorite happy occurrences is when I have no idea what to cook for dinner, I look around my kitchen, see one main item, have a brainstorm of what to make and then realize I actually have all the ingredients I need to make it!  That's what happened the other night.  I saw the sweet potatoes sitting in my veggie basket and thought, "oh I better use those soon before they go bad, what kind of Mexican dish can I make with them??" (I was CRAVING Mexican food, which is normal for me)  Then I remembered a Pinterest recipe I saw a while ago for a sweet potato enchilada, but of course I didn't pin it so I couldn't find it.  Therefore, I came up with my own recipe.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Wilted Spinach & Quinoa Salad

There is a lot of talk on the internet about eating "super foods."  I've found several lists online of super foods, they range anywhere from the top 10 to a list of 111.  If you are looking for a recipe loaded with super foods then this is for you.  I actually didn't realize how loaded with super foods this recipe was when I first made it but after researching super foods this morning I thought to myself, "hey, my wilted spinach and quinoa salad is loaded with these super foods!"  Oh, and by the way. . . it's so darn yum-e!

Chicken Enchiladas w/White Sauce

Enchiladas have to be one of my favorite foods.  I'm usually pretty boring with mine though, either red or green sauce with chicken and cheese.  But now that I have this blog I have an excuse to try all kinds of new recipes.  I found this one through Pinterest and then tweaked it just a little.  I have these great little ramekins (as you can see from the picture) that I wanted to use for this meal so I layered my enchiladas instead of rolling them, but by all means, roll them if you don't have cute little ramekins like me. :)

My 13 year old son gave this his official seal of approval.  He loves enchiladas with green sauce and then smothers them in sour cream, since this recipes has green chilies and sour cream in the sauce I figured he would love it!

Orzo Parmesan Melody

My hubby has a great time joking around every time I make orzo.  He picks on me by saying, "oh this RICE you made tonight is wonderful."  "I've never had RICE that has so much flavor," etc, etc.  Yes, he is a comedian!  

I love orzo.  To me it has this buttery quality to it, even when you don't add anything to it.  Usually I make it as a side dish to a protein that we are having, but this time I made it as the main course.  Orzo is great because you can add almost anything to it and have a tasty, satisfying meal.

BBQ Style Meatloaf

I was never a fan of meatloaf growing up.  Of course, I don't remember my mom making meatloaf all that often so maybe that's why.  One day while browsing through my Cooking Light cookbook I found a recipe for a meatloaf that sounded pretty tasty, and it was!  After that I decided that maybe meatloaf wasn't as awful as I had originally thought so I started coming up with different combinations.  This is just one of those.