This venture into gluten and lactose free affects cooking in so many ways. I was planning to make beef stew and realized that I could not use wheat flour to coat the beef or thicken the soup like I have in the past. Also I couldn’t use butter to brown the meat. It really wasn’t as difficult to figure out as I thought it would be. The most logical thing I could think of was to use instant potatoes to thicken the soup.
Ingredients:
1 lb. beef (tenderloin) cubed
1 cup celery
1 large white onion, chopped.
4 carrots
8 Red potatoes
1.5 cups instant potatoes
Olive oil
4 cups broth – I used organic chicken broth – the vegetable broth has “organic dextrose” in it and I wasn’t sure what that meant – need to research this!
Seasonings – this is completely up to you, I used what we like and a good amount of cayenne because we all like heat in our food: Oregano, Salt, Pepper, Garlic powder, Onion powder, Cayenne, Celery Salt
Because I didn’t want the stew to take forever to cook, I cut up the red potatoes and boiled them until soft. (I used this water for the soup when I added the potatoes)
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| 8 Organic Red potatoes |
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| Add 4 Tablespoons of Olive oil to pan, Brown beef. |
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| Add Celery, Onions and Carrots – cook until onions are translucent |
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| Add 1/2 cup Instant potatoes and 1 cup broth |
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| Stir together – it thickens just like flour would |
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| add potatoes, water, and broth |
Add potatoes and water they were boiled in (approx 4 cups) as well as remaining 3 cups broth.
I also added another cup of instant potatoes to thicken, as well as a cup of frozen peas and let simmer for 20 minutes until the carrots softened.
The verdict of gluten free / lactose free stew is that I did not miss the flour or the butter I would have used in this recipe originally. It is delicious!
A couple of things I would like to share about this meal – in the spirit of simplifying our week and cooking less, we are cooking more on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday and doing leftovers of this delicious food as leftovers on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This makes our evenings a bit simpler and gives us more time to do the other things we enjoy.
It just takes a little bit more planning.
Also in this picture are these adorable cloth napkins I found. The tile in the kitchen is yellow and these match perfectly with the Fiestaware dishes and the colors of the kitchen. The thing I love most about them is that I found 40 of them on closeout for $10 and have used them instead of napkins or paper towels, saving money and adding a nice touch to our every day meals.
I have always used instant potatoes to thicken my beef stew but I cook the meat in a crock pot to make it tender and then use the broth from that to help make it. If you have the time, try cooking the meat in a pot on low heat for a few hours to make it tender & then use that broth with additional broth.
I will try this in the summer when we don't have the wood stove on heating the house 🙂 Great idea!