I'm Trying Not to Hate Winter: Beef Stew with Cinnamon and Rice Noodles

I’m trying not to be a person who hates winter. Comfort food is an important part of that plan, and the vast majority of foods I find comforting are off-limits as written. Sure, you can skip an ingredient here or there – really, when’s the last time you really noticed the paprika? – and we’re very savvy about substitutions. But there’s a point at which you just can’t leave things out anymore, and beef stew has been a casualty of the nightshade intolerance.

Certain foods are simply supposed to be made certain ways, and beef stew without tomatoes and potatoes Just Isn’t The Same no matter how many times David tries to convince me that rutabagas are just like Yukon Gold potatoes (they’re not). Rice milk isn’t really a substitute for heavy cream any more than carob tastes just like chocolate and Tofutti tastes just like ice cream (it tastes like evil, in case you’re wondering), and the whole time I’m eating I’m going to be thinking about all the ways in which rutabagas, rice milk, Tofutti, and all the other substituted ingredients aren’t quite right. I’d rather skip it entirely, like ‘no-bake cheesecake.’

Beef stew is one of the quintessential winter comfort foods, so I kept looking for a version that didn't use tomatoes or potatoes or a flour-based roux and didn't make me notice the difference. This recipe fit the bill perfectly. It’s meant to be watery, like a soup, but there’s so much flavor packed into it – you can load it up with noodles or pour it over rice or eat it like a soup and it will be equally delicious and satisfying.

The recipe comes from the All-New Complete Cooking Light Cookbook. Cooking Light magazine was a favorite of ours for years; I still get the annual cookbook, which always includes some excellent menu ideas. 

Beef Stew with Cinnamon

2 teaspoons canola oil

2 lb stew beef

5 cups water

1 ½ cups sake

¾ cup GF soy sauce

¼ cup sugar

1 bunch green onions, cut into 1-inch pieces

6 cloves garlic, crushed

2 cinnamon sticks

1 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

1 package baby spinach

Cut the stew beef into small pieces (about 1-1 ½ inches; the pieces you get from the meat counter are too big). Heath the oil in a Dutch oven and brown the meat in batches.

When all the meat is browned, put it back in the Dutch oven and add the rest of the ingredients (except the spinach). Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce the heat. Simmer 2 hours or until the beef is very tender.

Remove the cinnamon sticks and ginger (if you can find it – I often leave it in). Stir in the spinach and cook another few minutes. Serve over rice noodles or rice. 

A Taste of VietNom-Nom: Sweet potato and shrimp fritters

Cold, cloudy, gloomy winter weekends are a wonderful time to browse through cookbooks and dream about all the things I’d cook if only I had the time and energy. Invariably these browsing sessions make me so hungry that I end up tearing my way through whatever is most convenient to hand, and then I’m too full to want to cook whatever ambitious dish I had in mind. It only took two weeks for me to get around the making this, which is something of a record; and now I’m going to keep shrimp and sweet potatoes around all the time because these are fantastic. The hardest part was finding our rarely-used deep fryer – and you can certainly make these with a regular pan instead (we used the deep fryer and it turned out to be a tremendous enabler. We’ve eaten more fried food in the last 2 weeks than we have in last 2 years.)

It’s only fair to tell you that we all burned our mouths eating these because we couldn’t wait for them to cool down. Even The Hater liked them – he hates both sweet potatoes and shrimp, as well as anything else that I make for dinner that isn’t ginger chicken – and the extra sauce was delicious poured over the beef and cinnamon stew we had as a main dish. Most of the work for this can be done earlier in the day and you can deal with the egg whites while the oil is heating up. The first couple of batches will hold nicely in the oven while you’re making the rest – or you can go all in, and burn your mouth eating them as soon as they come out. We won’t judge you.

This comes from One Potato, Two Potato, which I rarely get to use anymore since David doesn’t eat potatoes. It’s chock-full of interesting information and some of the best comfort food recipes ever, just right for cold wintry days when you don’t want to venture out to the grocery store and want to make something cozy with ingredients on hand.

Sweet potato and shrimp fritters 

1/3 cup fish sauce

1/3 cup fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons sugar

1 small habanero, cut into thin rings (optional)

¾ lb sweet potato, peeled and grated (this was one large potato, in case you’re wondering)

½ lb shrimp, peeled and deveined and chopped into ½-inch pieces

3 whole scallions, chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated (we use the jarred kind)

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup cornstarch

3 large egg whites

Make the sauce: Dissolve the sugar in ¼ cup warm water, then add the fish sauce and juice (and pepper, if you’re using it). Set aside.

Heat at least 3 inches of oil to 350 degrees in a pan or deep fryer. Heat the oven to 250 if you’re planning to hold the first couple of batches and serve them all at once.

Combine the potatoes, shrimp, scallions, ginger, garlic, and salt in a bowl. Sift the cornstarch over the top and stir to combine thoroughly.

Put the egg whites in a bowl with 2 tablespoons warm water and beat until they’re a soft foam. You shouldn’t have any liquid remaining at the bottom of the bowl. Stir the egg whites into the sweet potato mixture.

Scoop up a generous tablespoon of the mixture, flatten it a little with the back of a spoon, and slide it into the hot oil. Add a few more tablespoons as space permits; don’t crowd the pan or the oil will cool too much and your fritters will be heavy and greasy. Fry, turning a few times, until the entire thing is browned and crisp (about 5 minutes in our deep fryer). Put fritters in the oven to keep warm while you cook the rest.

Serve with the dipping sauce. The original recipe calls for wrapping these in a leaf of lettuce and garnishing with chopped fresh mint and cilantro, which is about the only thing I can imagine that would make them even more delicious. 

Breakfast Debate Redux: Oven-Baked Pancakes with Fruit Topping

If you read about the ongoing saga of our holidaybreakfasts, you may recall that I’ve gone through many, many recipes in an effort to please everyone - and poison no-one - on Christmas morning. Mostly I’ve given up. Now my main goal is to avoid anyone feeling the need to cry during breakfast. We were feeling a little hashed-out (and John really, really hates sweet potatoes right now) so it was back to square one this year, with a cookbook that I acquired at some point in the distant past which contains nothing except breakfast recipes. It seemed like a reasonable starting point; surely, with "Hundreds of divine recipes to take you to breakfast paradise!" even we could find something that would make everyone happy. Also, I can't resist cookbook hyperbole.

The recent availability of a wider assortment of GF flour blends on the grocery store shelves has made me a little giddy. Granted, we can’t eat most of them – but we can eat some, and the presence of a Costco-sized bag of Namaste brand GF flour blend in my pantry has been a big incentive to try baking again. (Most of these recent experiments could be used to prop open a heavy door, but I continue to sally forth undaunted....) Our favorite local bakery has also started selling their rice flour blend by the pound, so this seemed like a good year to dive back into flour-based breakfast recipes. 

We ended up with the usual sparkling juice and fruit and Canadian bacon (“Is it ham? Is it bacon? It’s….hacon!” announced John), plus these ridiculously easy baked pancakes, which might possibly be realistic for an organized weekday morning though I'm making no promises out loud. Don’t skip the fruit topping, which is utterly fantastic on this (and waffles and buckwheat pancakes - with a little whipped cream – OMG, really so, so good). I had to make a second batch and we all ate until we were too full to move. And nobody cried until we watched “Frozen.” Breakfast success! 

Oven-Baked Pancakes with Fruit Topping

3 eggs

½ cup of your favorite GF flour mix (or flour, if you're so inclined)

½ cup of your favorite non-dairy milk substitute (or, you know, milk)

2 tbsp non-dairy fake margarine scary stuff, melted. (If you can use butter instead, do!)

Generous pinch of salt

Finely grated zest of half a lemon

Powdered sugar, for serving

Preheat the oven to 400. Spray 2 9-inch pie pans with cooking spray.

Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and frothy. Add the flour, a couple of tablespoons at a time, and mix well after each addition. Beat in the remaining ingredients.

Pour the batter into the pie pans, dividing it evenly, and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 and bake for another 5 minutes.

Remove the pans from the oven, sprinkle with powdered sugar even though you’re about to put fruit on top of this, and serve immediately. It's not overkill if it's Christmas. 

Peach-Raspberry Compote

1 cup raspberries

3-4 fresh peaches, pitted and chopped

½ cup sugar

1 cinnamon stick

Grated zest and juice of 1 orange

2 tbsp ruby port

1 tsp vanilla extract

Put the fruit, sugar, cinnamon, zest, and juice into a medium saucepan. Add enough water to mostly cover the fruit and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and cook until the fruit is very soft and the water is mostly gone (the raspberries will pretty much disintegrate and the peaches will break down).

When the sauce is reduced, remove the cinnamon stick and stir in the port and vanilla. This is good served warm or cold, but I don’t recommend taste-testing as soon as you take it off the stove because you’ll burn your tongue and set a bad example for your kids.

Keeps for a week in the fridge if you hide the leftovers from the rest of the family.