Beefless Stew
Yesterday was supposedly the first day of Spring, but you wouldn't know it from our weather. It's been raining for days and the temperature has been pretty chilly for Mississippi. So last night I resorted to a favorite family comfort-food: Beefless Stew.
I don't use a lot of processed soy products in my cooking, but every now and then a little TVP really adds some meaty texture to a dish. TVP stands for textured vegetable protein, and it's basically defatted soy flour that has been cooked and extruded into different shapes and sizes. If you're lucky, you can find it in your local natural food store, but if you're me, you have to order it online. My local co-op, though I cherish it greatly, has granular TVP and chicken-style TVP but never the chunk beef-style.
The basic recipe for Beefless Stew is endlessly adaptable; I never make it the same way twice, adding herbs to taste and varying amounts to fit the ingredients I have on-hand. For instance, that batch of stew you see in the photo above (which was taken by my budding photographer daughter) contained only about 2 ounces of mushrooms and they were baby portabellas, because that's all I had in the fridge. And I didn't use the millet this time around, so it's completely optional. And ditto for the wine: the red wine adds a great deal of flavor, but I didn't have any so I skipped it. And I had yukon gold potatoes instead of red.
Anyway, you get the picture. It's home-style cooking at its easiest--just toss it all in a pot and cook. If you make it and use any new ingredients, please drop me a comment and let me know. It's my mom's recipe, but I won't tell her you changed it!
Well, in the crazy, multiple-personality spirit of Spring in the South, today is a gorgeous, sunny miracle. I'm going to take my twisted ankle and my dog out for a little walk (hobble?) in the yard. I wish you all sunshine and blue skies, too!
I don't use a lot of processed soy products in my cooking, but every now and then a little TVP really adds some meaty texture to a dish. TVP stands for textured vegetable protein, and it's basically defatted soy flour that has been cooked and extruded into different shapes and sizes. If you're lucky, you can find it in your local natural food store, but if you're me, you have to order it online. My local co-op, though I cherish it greatly, has granular TVP and chicken-style TVP but never the chunk beef-style.
The basic recipe for Beefless Stew is endlessly adaptable; I never make it the same way twice, adding herbs to taste and varying amounts to fit the ingredients I have on-hand. For instance, that batch of stew you see in the photo above (which was taken by my budding photographer daughter) contained only about 2 ounces of mushrooms and they were baby portabellas, because that's all I had in the fridge. And I didn't use the millet this time around, so it's completely optional. And ditto for the wine: the red wine adds a great deal of flavor, but I didn't have any so I skipped it. And I had yukon gold potatoes instead of red.
Anyway, you get the picture. It's home-style cooking at its easiest--just toss it all in a pot and cook. If you make it and use any new ingredients, please drop me a comment and let me know. It's my mom's recipe, but I won't tell her you changed it!
Well, in the crazy, multiple-personality spirit of Spring in the South, today is a gorgeous, sunny miracle. I'm going to take my twisted ankle and my dog out for a little walk (hobble?) in the yard. I wish you all sunshine and blue skies, too!
posted by SusanV at 4:02 PM
4 Comments:
Hi Susan! The stew looks great. I will be making the broccoli slaw this weekend, I'll let you know how it goes. The dressing sounds FABULOUS! We have the first day of spring snow here also.
Hey thanks, Dori! I can't wait to hear what you think.
Well, I had some problems with Blogger, and it wouldn't let me post. I wrote the entry for Beefless Stew this morning, when it was bright and sunny outside. By the time I actually got it published, the dark clouds had rolled in again. We've got beautiful flowers blooming, but I guess it's too much to ask that we have nice weather to go with them. ;-)
Sunshine and blue skies- yes, we got that today, with snow still on the ground and 20 some degrees temp. No complains, the kids are happy!
I made the Korean Tofu and Vegetables Stew today. It was really good! Thumbs up from everybody. I posted about it on my blog and put a link to your post- hope that's okay.
Hi susan! I'm a long time reader, first time commenter. I'm not a big soup/stew fan, not to mention that I live in Australia and it is still very hot at the moment, so I won't be trying the stew, but I am going to be having a go at Tamale Bites in the next few days - they look great. I'm looking forward to experimenting with the filling. A question - is cornmeal called polenta in Australia? You probably don't know but I think it is. It's annoying how things have different names in different countries.
Anyway, your amazing blog inspired me to start my own but I have had no comments as yet - would it be possible to put a link to my blog on yours to increase the flow of people? That would be really great. Thanks again for all the amazing recipes!
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