Guinness Beef Stew for St. Patty's Day

Surely you will see countless Guinness recipes on this St. Patty's Day.  However, I must tell you that this one is special!  As I (attempted to) reorganize my tags in a fit of boredom and bad TV, I noticed how very few 'beef' recipes I've posted on the site.  Truth is, of all the things I love in this world, I just don't love beef.  I know, I know...I've come around on a lot of foods, and perhaps this just may be one of them.



Though I put on my best show - cringing and making faces while cooking the stew, once I dug in I had to sheepishly admit that damn, this stuff is pretty good! This stew is chock full of flavor, hearty veggies and of course, hunks of beef.

Speaking of hearty veggies, I had never cooked with parsnips or really knew what they looked liked.  Luckily the friendly guy working produce at Henry's was so kind as to not only show me what they were, but also pull some fresh ones from the back.  Have I mentioned that I love Henry's?



Apparently I am the last person in the world to enjoy parsnips as I received not two but three comments on my purchase from other customers inquiring what I was making and mentioning the deliciousness of parsnips. For those in the dark like me, don't let the odd paint smell of parsnips turn you off! They're like carrots, only tastier :)  The original recipe called for turnips, but I just couldn't add one more oddity to my meal.  Instead, I added good old standbys:  Yukon Gold potatoes (a definite must add) and celery.

Hope you enjoy St. Patrick's Day. What are your plans? Green beer and Guinness Stew, I hope! :) 

Guinness Beef Stew
Adapted from Cooking Light March '10

Canola oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup all purpose flour
salt & pepper for seasoning beef
2 pounds boneless chuck roast, cut into cubes (don't use lean stew meat as it will get tough with the slow cooking)
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
5 cups chopped onion (about 3)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
4 cups beef broth
1 (11.2 oz) bottle Guinness Draught
1 tablespoon raisins
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 bay leaf
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 medium-large Yukon Gold potatoes, chopped into chunks
1 1/2 cups diagonally sliced carrots (peeled)
1 1/2 cups diagonally sliced parsnips (peeled)
2 tablespoons finely chopped flat leaf parsley

1. Heat several rounds of oil in a large stock pot or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons butter to pan.

2. Place flour in a shallow dish. Sprinkle beef with salt and pepper; dredge beef in flour. Add half of beef to pan and cook 5 minutes, until browned but not cooked through. Remove beef and repeat procedure with remaining beef.

3. Add onion to pan and cook about 5 minutes or until tender. Stir in tomato paste and cook 1 minute. Stir in broth, beer, scraping bottom of pan to loosen brown bits. Return meat to pot; stir in 1 teaspoon salt, raisins, caraway seeds, pepper and bay leaf. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

4. Uncover and bring back to a slow boil. Cook uncovered for 50 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add carrot, parsnip, celery and potatoes. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Uncover and bring back to boil, cook 10 minutes or until veggies are cooked and tender. Remove bay leaf & sprinkle with parsley.

Soft Potato Quick Rolls

After consecutive days of being unable to breathe due to an unfortunate constriction in my waistband, I began to seriously second guess my holiday gluttony. I love my family but more importantly, my family loves to eat. After a yummy Thanksgiving feast and days of shuttling my parents around to each of our favorite restaurants in town, things were surely getting a little tight. Luckily, I awoke this morning to discover that my pants had finally granted me a freebie by stretching out so I can resume eating leftovers. {{sigh of relief}}.


Last night hubby and I desperately wanted turkey sandwiches but could not subject ourselves to a 10th grocery store trip in a week. I scoured the internet for a quick sandwich roll recipe and found several using a common theme of potato flakes, onion powder, yeast and a muffin tin. With a total rise time of about 50 minutes (split between two sessions), these rolls were ready right before bed time, a perfect time to gorge on bread, dont you think?

I must say i'm desperately in love with this easy recipe. I added Parmesan cheese, used roasted garlic potato flakes and threw in a little extra sugar. Next time, I may try adding real garlic and some cheese. The possibilities are endless!

Soft Potato Quick Rolls
adapted from Allrecipes and King Arthur's Flour

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 cup dry roasted garlic potato flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
2 tablespoons canola oil
3/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 tablespoon parmesan cheese
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour


In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar and stir. Add potato flakes, salt, egg, oil, onion powder, cheese and 1 cup of the flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in remaining flour. Continue stirring until smooth, scraping batter from sides of bowl.

Cover and let dough rise in warm place until doubled, about 20 to 30 minutes. Lightly grease 12 muffin cups.

Once risen, punch down dough. Spoon dough evenly into greased muffin cups. Let rise until batter reaches tops of cups, or about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Bake for 15 minutes.

The Pioneer's Crash Hot Potatoes

Digital cameras are clearly a godsend, allowing us the liberty to take countless photos of life's greatest minutiae. Remember when you actually had to buy rolls of camera film?

The novelty of taking countless shots of the same colorfully gorgeous sunset from each and every angle could get a little costly. Plus, how did you know that your last shot sucked and you needed to take another? In this age of instant gratification, it seems almost odd that we used to wait hours, days or even weeks to witness the fruits (...or duds) of our photography efforts.

On the other hand, I must say that a part of me misses the excitement of rushing out to the drugstore to develop film, tearing open the envelope when they were finished, and having all the good memories unfold before me like a storybook. I now find myself forgetting where I saved pictures, kind of bored of them since I can look at them over and over again on my camera, and worst of all forgetting to get them developed. Do you agree?

While combing through forgotten photo files, I found these delicious potatoes in a random Thanksgiving folder. I'm not sure how I forgot about these potatoes as we never make potatoes any other way after trying these!


I first found the recipe for these potatoes on the admirable Pioneer Woman's website. Small red potatoes are boiled until tender. Once drained, you smash them with a potato masher and sprinkle with Kosher salt, pepper, Rosemary (or a spice of your choosing) and a nice bath of olive oil. Roast and voila, you have some of the most delectable, crispy and flavorful potatoes you could hope for. The Pioneer Woman is always full of magic :)

These are so easy, you really don't need a recipe. For those of you who still want one here you go!

Crash Hot Potatoes
Courtesy of the Pioneer Woman Cooks

Small red potatoes
chopped Rosemary
Kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a large pot, bring salted water to a boil. Add in as many potatoes as you'd like to cook. Boil until forked tender. Drain.

Drizzle a cookie sheet with olive oil. Place potatoes on the sheet and with a potato masher gently press down on the potato. Rotate the masher 90 degrees and mash again. Repeat with the remaining potatoes. Brush the tops with olive oil.

Sprinkle rosemary, salt and pepper on the potatoes.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and crispy.

Sweet Potato Buttermilk Dinner Rolls

It's not often that toilet paper is discussed on food blogs, but there's just something that's been perplexing me for awhile now. Does anyone else feel like toilet paper is the new gas? Well, OK that sounds funny. But with gas prices falling, I don't feel like crawling into a hole and quietly mumbling nonsense to myself every time I see the dreaded gas light taunt me. Unlike curbing my car for unnecessary trips, there's just no getting around needing to buy toilet paper for the house. Uh, and it's really expensive when you think about what you're getting for your money. People talk about conserving gas all the time but why has no one mentioned conserving toilet paper?

Well, in the spirit of penny pinching and today's earth shattering confirmation of our recession, here's a great way to use up all those leftover sweet potatoes from Thanksgiving's sweet potato pie. I found this fabulous recipe on Nicole's Pinch My Salt, an equally fabulous blog full of mouth watering goods.

These Sweet Potato Buttermilk Rolls are gorgeously colorful, fluffy and (believe me) easy to make. Oh, and they're delicious too. What more could you want from your carbs??

Nutrition, of course. Packed with sweet potato's vitamin A, you've got yourself a healthy carb to feel good about & enjoy with all that turkey haunting your refrigerator.


The rolls keep pretty well, and we have been making turkey sammies daily since Thanksgiving. Since Nicole does such a wonderful job with the recipe and is so kind and talented to provide step by step photos, I'll just send you over to her for my new favorite bread recipe. I almost didn't change a thing, but decided to add a little more sugar than 1/4 cup.

After allowing to rest for a mere hour, the dough easily doubles. Make sure it's ready by poking two fingers and making sure the indentation doesn't go anywhere (tip courtesy of Nicole).


Shape into an a round ball and cut dough into equal portions. Roll into cute balls.

Sprinkle with flour and bake until golden brown!


The rolls keep pretty well but taste amazing when popped into the toaster oven for a few minutes. For anyone still tentative on baking with yeast, I used the sometimes hard to find SAF Perfect Rise yeast. It doesn't require proofing and has never failed me. I can sometimes find it at Trader Joe's though they'll have it one day and the next they won't!

For more tasty bread inspirations, visit Yeastspotting!

The Carnivore's Gone Veg!

That's right, folks. The Carnivore and his wife have decided to go vegetarian! Well, for a little bit at least. Before the Poultry farmers of America & the Cattleman's Beef Board begin fretting for their livelihood, this meat-free household is a temporary experiment. One night after much thought & prodding, Hubby couldn't remember the last time he went a day without eating meat:

"Hmm, maybe when I was a baby?!"
Wrong Answer.

As valiant as my meat eating efforts have been, we figured it was prime time to incorporate some more vegetables in our diet and an excellent opportunity for me to experiment with vegetarian cooking. So far, this challenge hasn't been too difficult. I've enjoyed exploring all the great vegetarian blogs (here or here, for example) & cookbooks. I haven't been tempted until I went out with a friend for a bite to eat at Girard Gourmet. Out came our food: a fragrant, hearty lamb stew that smelled like heaven (for her), a Greek salad with limp lettuce and oily cucumbers (for me). I've never lusted for meat quite like that! mmm...well, that sounds wrong, huh?

I'm happy to report back that my first vegetarian dinner was a great success. So much so that I didn't have time to take a photo as we quickly devoured our meal. After being overwhelmed by all the veggie options I had bookmarked, I decided to make the Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas from Karina's Kitchen.

While I wasn't initially sure about the flavor combination, its hard for me to describe how delicious the recipe turned out. The enchiladas were light and summery & I think they'd be great in the future with a little bit of fruit - maybe pineapple or mango. I gratuitously complimented my vegetarian culinary skills during the entire meal; Hubby enjoyed them, but he also seemed a little bit in shock at what I had somehow committed him to.

Since I had some leftover sweet potato (...or yam, whatever. Don't get me started!), I decided to make a Sweet Potato Streuseled Bread. Ginger, cinnamon, and orange zest add a nice spice, while the walnut brown sugar streusel lends the right amount of sweetness and crunch to this hearty bread. The streusel definitely makes the bread, so don't skip it as I usually do with quick breads! A good quality orange juice as also a must as the orange flavor definitely stands out in the bread.

While I don't think I'll be replacing my favorite banana bread quite yet, the bread was a great way to use up leftover sweet potatoes and sneak in some Vitamin A into our diets (think of it as a multivitamin in dessert bread form, it'll make you feel better!)

Sweet Potato Walnut Streusel Bread
adapted from Southern Living

1 large sweet potato (about 12 ounces)
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2/3 cup fresh orange juice (you may need a few extra tablespoons to moisten the dough sufficiently)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon fresh orange zest (approximate, about 3-4 swipes of the grater)

Cooking spray
cinnamon finishing sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°.
Cook potato in either microwave or by boiling. Once softened, mash the potato to measure about 1 cup.

Place butter in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 20 seconds or until soft. Stir in walnuts and 2 tablespoons brown sugar.

Lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine all-purpose flour and next 6 ingredients (all-purpose flour through ginger) in a large bowl. Add mashed sweet potato, juice, oil, egg, and orange zest. Stir with a spatula until well blended. Add more orange juice by the tablespoon, if dough seems to dry.

Spoon batter into an 8 x 4-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Drop walnut mixture by spoonfuls over top of loaf; gently press into batter. Sprinkle with cinnamon finishing sugar, if using.

Bake at 350° for about 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 minutes on a wire rack. Remove from pan; cool completely on wire rack