I have taken photos for this recipe a few times and never end up posting them.  You see I was once a vegetarian, long before being diagnosed with Celiac.  I blamed meat for my stomach aches and took serious issue with the commercial meat industry. Seems it was gluten all along and that nice organic or naturally raised and grass fed beef agrees with me just fine. I spend a lot of time, effort and money on sourcing ethical meat.

We have a few good butchers we can walk to in the city and a few farmer friends in the county who we buy chicken from but honestly buying good meat can be a total pain.  We only eat it a few times a week yet having to go to 6 different stores to get groceries gets old fast.  Especially in the Toronto winters while pushing a baby stroller.
So Lately we’ve been buying large quantities of good meat.  We’ve bought 16ths of happy cows, 10 pound blocks of organic bacon and are currently sharing our second whole pig with friends Catherine and Andrew. It really scares your kids when they here you are waiting for a pig to arrive. When you order in bulk you get all sort of adventurous cuts I’d never think to buy individually.

Here’s my family’s stew recipe. These are mostly my dad’s stew instructions, from my mother’s recipe, with my brother Douglas bossing the herbs and my protein rich addition of quinoa.  In these photos I’ve used a blade steak, but as a receiving vegetarian I didn’t know any better.  It was far to tender and I should have used something else. Oh well, it was still delicious.

Ingredients

Stewing beef cubed

6 small onions

12 carrots

20 new potatoes

1/2 cup of white wine

boiling water to cover

Jar or can of tomatoes

1/2 head of cabbage

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon savoury

1/2 teaspoon rosemary

1/2 cup uncooked quinoa (will yield 1 1/2 cups cooked)

Chop up your beef with the pieces of fat trimmed. Brown it all in a large thick bottomed pot.

Once the fat is rendered, give the remaining hunks of fat to the dog.

Add in your herbs, bay leaf and salt and pepper.

Peel your onions.  Use small ones as we’re going to cook them whole. Generally I add 1 per person. Throw them in with the beef to brown.

Deglaze your pan with the white wine. Drink a little too if it’s almost dinner.

Next coarsely chop carrots into 1 inch pieces.

Boil water in the kettle, add whole new potatoes and carrots, then boiling water to cover ingredients in pot.

Add a jar of tomatoes.

Throw in some wedges cabbage if you have it on hand.

Bring to a boil then cover and gently simmer for 45 minutes.

Cook Quinoa separately but rinsing 1/2 cup of quinoa, bringing to a boil with 1 1/2 cups of water or broth, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  Add about 2-3 table spoons of cooked quinoa to each dish as you serve them.

This meal is a staple for our family through the fall and winter.  Some time I have cabbage, sometimes I don’t. The tomatoes are optional but lately I have more than enough tomatoes to last the year. The quinoa is nice because the kids will always eat it even if they are on potato strike or what ever weird rule they’ve invented this week.

Since we’re buying meat in large quantities once or twice a year, the price comes down dramatically for organic/grass fed/heritage/naturally raised meat. We’ve purchased directly from farmers, through local butchers, delivery services like Foodie Pages who brought us so much grass fed beef from Grandview Farms, and we are on our second round of pork comes from The Whole Pig. We were lucky enough to be given a chest freezer and now have the immense privilege of not having to even walk through the meat section at the local grocery store.

So where do you buy your meat? And what’s your criteria for sourcing meat? Do you have a freezer full of pork chops?

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