Paleo Beef Stew

I spent today in the kitchen.  Today was my day to make snacks for our Youth Group and along with that I also had to make snacks for the Court of Honor at Boy Scouts tonight.  I decided to make Man Cookies for Scouts, which have to be my favorite cookie, tied with a good oatmeal raisin.  While deciding to make these for the Scouts, I was stumped as to what to make for the Youth.  But then it hit me, why not make Man Cookies for both?  It's a simple enough recipe to make gluten free (remember, we have a celiac who attends) so I just swapped out the flour for gluten free baking mix and bam, I had gluten free Man Cookies.

Can you tell the difference?  One of those is gluten free while the other isn't.  I posted this picture on Facebook earlier today and my celiac friend couldn't tell the difference between the two by looking at them.  I will say this, I can't see a difference, I couldn't taste a difference (because I did eat both, the gluten free one well before the non-gluten free one), but I could feel a difference.  By that I mean my tummy cramped up after I ate the regular cookie, but that's because I have cut gluten out of my diet and when I bring it back in it doesn't like me.  Or I should say, my body doesn't like it.  By the way, the cookie on the right is the gluten free cookie.

After I was done making the Man Cookies, it was time to start making dinner.  Another easy dinner for me and even though it was Wednesday, I didn't do a crock pot meal.  This meal could easily be adapted to a crock pot meal since it was stew, but since I had someone else take #3 to ballet tonight so I could go to the Court of Honor at Scouts and see #2 get some awards, I was able to just make dinner.  Since #2's also the Senior Patrol Leader he ran the ceremony tonight and that was fun to watch.

For this meal I chopped up some onions and a clove of garlic and threw it in a pot to get tender.  After a few minutes I added in a pound of cubed stew meat and let that brown on each side.  Once that was browned I added 2 cans of whole tomatoes, 10 oz of beef broth, a couple of sliced carrots, some mushrooms, basil and oregano.  I mashed up the tomatoes then let that all simmer for an hour and it was done.  I got the original recipe here and of course I adapted it.  The recipe called for red wine and I just upped the beef broth instead. It also called for diced carrots and we like sliced carrots in our beef stew.  I had some mushrooms left over from our Slow Cooker Hunter's Chicken last week, so I thought I'd toss them in before they went bad.

Verdict: This meal was simple yet pleasing to everyone.  Even #3 decided to try the mushrooms and liked them.  I had planned on making Paleo Corn Bread with this meal, which would have been perfect, but I forgot.  So I'll make the corn bread tomorrow with the Maple-Walnut Chicken that will be tomorrow's Paleo Adventure.  This is a great comfort meal that can be thrown together rather quick.

PALEO BEEF STEW

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

1 large onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 lb beef stew meat, cubed

2 medium carrots, sliced

10 oz beef stock

4 cups (2 cans) canned tomatoes

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 tsp oregano leaves

1 tsp basil leaves

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. In a pot, cook onion and garlic until softened.

2. Add beef and cook till browned.

3. Add all the remaining ingredients.  Using a tomato masher, mash the tomatoes if they are whole tomatoes.

4. Put a lid on and simmer on low for an hour.

**Note – this can be cooked in a slow cooker on low for 6-8 hours.