We made another great, root veggie stew tonight.

Beef
Onions
Celery root
Carrots
Parsley root
Parsley (leaves)
Anise
Basil
Touch of cayenne
Touch of spelt
Green Beans
3 oz red Boujoules wine

I don't have "exact" measurements for you, because we never use exact amounts.  Just kind "eye" things for how much will be balanced.

Take 1.5 lbs or more of your favorite roast, and cut it into tiny, bite size pieces, trimming off excess fat.

Take a container and mix together 1- 1.5 cups of the freshest spelt flour and fresh ground cayenne to taste.  (You can use just about any flour; we've usesd Kamut before, but this brand of spelt, "VitaSpelt" is really good and fresh.)  Lewis says, that fresh Japalo sp? dried peppers, with the seeds removed and ground up in the spice grinder makes the BEST cayenne!  I would say I put in (this is the part of the preperation that I do) close to 1/2 tsp of cayenne.

Coat your beef pieces well with your flour and cayenne mixture.  Heat up a large, 12" skillet with Ghee and fry up your beef so it gets well cooked and a little carmelized.

Once your beef is cooked all the way through, decide on the size pot you want to make.  Lewis loves to use his new "dutch oven" right on the stove top that he got from Target for about $40.00  Cooks Illustrated Magazine rated it a great buy, and it works real well on the stove.  Our dutch oven holds about 3.8 quarts.  Fill it about 1/2 to 2/3rds with water; you can add water as needed.

Peel/trim the celery root down so that you are left with no brown and all white.  Cut it into several large pieces and put this in your pot. Throw in the wine.  Keep the celery root pieces large because you will remove them later. Peel then cut up the parsley root into tiny tiny pieces; so you will have about a cup of parsley root.  Bring this to a boil, then simmer for one hour.  Remove large celery root pieces.  

Chop up the anise root into tiny tiny pieces, about 1 cup worth and add to the pot.  Chop up carrots (decide on how much carrot you want) into bite size pieces and add to the stew pot.  About 15 minutes later, puree two large onions in your food processor and add to your pot.

Puree about 2 cups of de-stemmed parsley leaves in your food processor and add to the pot.  Cook these ingredients about 1/2 hour.  Then add your green beans....as much as you want.  When you only have about 10-15 minutes of cooking time left, you add about 1/2 cup of very finely chopped basil.

I love the flavor that anise adds to this stew!  Because of the green beans, anise and basil, we did not add sweet potatoes like we do to some of our stews.  Lewis says, the sweet potatoes would have clashed with the basil/anise/bean flavors.

Total cooking time from start to finish: 2 hours.  Salt your bowl of stew to taste.

Funny KK I made more or less the same type of stew last evening:
beef, onions, garlic, basil, chili, paprika, carrots, and red peppers, beef stock, red wine-
took meat up when tender and pureed the veggies to a garvy- added beef back with cooked green beans
-finechopped parsley on top.
I think I´ll try your combo next time
- My O loved my B friendly version...got it cold for lunch!

Particularly, save all the cores/tops/trimmings from say like Broccoli, Carrots, and Cabbage {if used} to add to the stew for extra flavour. In fact I've been sving my trimmings for the weekly soup-pot prep.

Parsnips are may fave as of late to add to the pot as well.
And if if it is being stewed for a long-period, several Bay Leaves really help.

Quoted from Henriette_Bsec

Funny KK I made more or less the same type of stew last evening:
beef, onions, garlic, basil, chili, paprika, carrots, and red peppers, beef stock, red wine-
took meat up when tender and pureed the veggies to a garvy- added beef back with cooked green beans
-finechopped parsley on top.
I think I´ll try your combo next time
- My O loved my B friendly version...got it cold for lunch!

Henriette!  We've made some soups where we pureed all the vegetables, too!  Mr. KK usually does that with chicken, or if he's experimenting adding a new spice.  I LOVE anise, and the way it makes a stew taste.  It was SO GOOD last night, we ate too much!

thanks for sharing!
I would personally omit the frying in spelt flour bit, but for gourmet chefs like you it sounds like the real McCoy!!!

KK, that sounds great! Thanks for sharing the recipe

Schluggell, we always save bits and pieces to use for soup stock. I use homemade vegetable stock for some soups and stews because it always adds a nice range of flavors to a recipe that might otherwise be rather bland. I'll have to try parsnips there, maybe it will help me learn to like them better.

Quoted from lola

thanks for sharing!
I would personally omit the frying in spelt flour bit, but for gourmet chefs like you it sounds like the real McCoy!!!

I understand.  Using grain like this is the most that I do, usually.  Mr. Kk does like to have a touch of spelt in a stew to give it a particular taste and texture.

Quoted from Brighid45

KK, that sounds great! Thanks for sharing the recipe

Schluggell, we always save bits and pieces to use for soup stock. I use homemade vegetable stock for some soups and stews because it always adds a nice range of flavors to a recipe that might otherwise be rather bland. I'll have to try parsnips there, maybe it will help me learn to like them better.

We've tried parsnips in Lewis's stew concoctions in the past, but he doesn't care for the taste of them, so we rarely if ever cook with them.

Thank you for sharing.

Alia

Quoted from Brighid45

...I'll have to try parsnips there, maybe it will help me learn to like them better.

For the vegetables you don't {or guests don't } care for, grate them fine...then they'll never know they are even in it, and you'll get the compliments of what is the 'secret ingredient' as well

A good way to get the Kohlrabi, Turnip, and Rutabaga {Swede} in as well...

Schluggell: thanks for the idea of grating the veggies. I'll have to try that. I'd like to incorporate more beneficial root vegetables into my recipes, so that might just be the way to do it until my taste buds change again and I start actively liking turnips, parsnips etc.

KK: I also meant to comment on the homemade cayenne. That sounds fabulous! Grinding up those dried peppers though . . . whoa. Do you have a dedicated grinder? (One used just for peppers.) That's a very tempting thought! We go through a lot of cayenne in our house, so making our own would be great fun and very tasty!

Years ago I worked for a seed company that sold several hot pepper varieties. Because the seeds were fairly rare, we only gave people ten seeds per packet. Just counting those things out and packaging them meant wearing latex gloves, and your mucous membranes always took a hit! (In other words, you never licked your lips or blew your nose after working with those seeds!) !! I'd bet grinding your own cayenne would be a similar experience.

Quoted from Brighid45

KK: I also meant to comment on the homemade cayenne. That sounds fabulous! Grinding up those dried peppers though . . . whoa. Do you have a dedicated grinder? (One used just for peppers.) That's a very tempting thought! We go through a lot of cayenne in our house, so making our own would be great fun and very tasty!

Years ago I worked for a seed company that sold several hot pepper varieties. Because the seeds were fairly rare, we only gave people ten seeds per packet. Just counting those things out and packaging them meant wearing latex gloves, and your mucous membranes always took a hit! (In other words, you never licked your lips or blew your nose after working with those seeds!) !! I'd bet grinding your own cayenne would be a similar experience.

This variety that Lewis found is not real "hot."  It's very flavorful though.  Next time he gets some, I'll copy the exact name/brand and post it.

We have a little black & decker grinder that we got at Target for about $29.00  The grinding part can be removed from the base and put in the dishwasher.  Then again, Lewis puts his homemade cayenne in just about everything lol!  He does a bunch at a time, and has that cayenne in a special spice shaker.

You have to understand that he's purchased many varieties of peppers over the past year.  He's ground them all up, and used them in different dishes.  It's this particular brand that he's settled on.  (And that I hear is "oh so fantastic!  These peppers are so good!" lol!) He really pays attention to expiration dates, etc., because the fresher it is the better, of course.

Quoted from Schluggell

For the vegetables you don't {or guests don't } care for, grate them fine...then they'll never know they are even in it, and you'll get the compliments of what is the 'secret ingredient' as well

A good way to get the Kohlrabi, Turnip, and Rutabaga {Swede} in as well...

that´s  Mums secret weapon  

don t forget the jicama, too! lol