I fell in love with the beef stew at a local place called King Kong. After many attempts, I've come up with this recipe, and I think it's as good or better!
Author: FaylinaMeir
Serves: 8 servings
Ingredients
2½ pounds cut up gold potatoes
1 kg (about 2 pounds) beef chuck, cut into ½ inch pieces trimmed of the fat
1 15 ounce can north beans, rinsed and drained well
1 medium onion, diced
1 6 ounce can tomato paste
approx 3 liters (quarts) water, or more, see recipe
1 tablespoon Ghee (see note)
½ teaspoon salt, as needed, optional
4.00 cup drained, Green Beans, Fresh Cut Rinsed and Drained
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste
Instructions
Prepare all your ingredients ahead of time. Finally dice your onions, cut your potatoes into ½ inch cubes and soak in water til using (this helps prevent oxidization), cut your beef into ½ inch pieces, rinse your beans well, drain your green beans, and mix your tomato paste with all your seasonings. This helps prevent clumps of seasoning in your stew.
With your pot over medium-high, saute your onions til it softens and just starts to brown, this should take about 3-5 minutes. Then add your beef and stir it around. If you want you can brown your beef, but it isn't required. Add enough water to cover your beef by a few centimeters, or about an inch. Add salt now if desired.
Cover, reduce the heat, and boil until the meat is tender. Anywhere between 30-60 minutes. Check on it every so often and add a bit more water if needed so it doesn't boil dry. After meat is tender add your potatoes and enough water to color by a few centimeters or an inch. Boil the potatoes until fork tender, about 15-20 minutes.
At this point add the rest of your ingredients, making sure to dissolve all the tomato paste and seasoning. If you want to, boil your soup down more until it thickens like mine. Adjust the salt and pepper and you're done! This soup only gets better in the fridge the next day and is excellent over toast, cornbread, or plain ole rice. Delicious and a sure fire recipe!
Notes
Any type of onion or any type of potato can be used, I just prefer sweet onions and yukon gold potatoes. If you don't have ghee you can use olive oil or use ½ tablespoon oil and ½ tablespoon butter for the same rich taste
Making kimchi is a really easy thing to do. I know it seems daunting, but I promise, you'll love the end result! Best of all this recipe is vegan, but easily made more traditional. If you use gluten free tamari, it's also suitable for those with gluten allergies.
Author: FaylinaMeir
Serves: 10 servings
Ingredients
2.2lbs (1 kilo) napa cabbage
¼ cup coarse sea salt (for salting)
300g daikon radish (or Korean radish)
1 medium or 2 small carrots
8 green onions
porridge
2 cups water
2 tablespoons sweet rice flour
¼ cup soy sauce or fish sauce
½ cup to 1½ cups red pepper powder
1 tablespoon sugar, optional
2 generous tablespoons ginger, peeled (about a 1½ by 1 inch piece)
8 cloves garlic
½ sweet apple or ½ korean pear or 1 small pear
supplies
1 jar glass jar with tight fitting lid
sauce pan & whisk
blender or stick blender
gloves, HIGHLY suggested for mixing
Instructions
You need to start out by salting the cabbage. This step is easy I promise. Follow along with the video. Cut the cabbage head into 4 pieces like shown and rinse under cold water. Shake the excess water off, and sprinkle salt into each leaf. Don't skip this step, if you don't salt it well enough the end result isn't very good! Leave the cabbage in a glass bowl to set.
After 1 hour, toss the cabbage over, put any larger and thicker pieces towards the bottom. If you want you can spoon over the juice to help soak better.
After another hour (2 hours total) check the cabbage, it shouldn't be gooey but softened. If you taste a piece it will have a slight crunch, but slightly salty.
Rinse the cabbage 2-3 times under cold water. Make sure to rinse off each leaf. You don't want excess salt in your kimchi.
Set the cabbage in a strainer to dry out some while you prepare the porridge.
Add 2 cups of cool water to a saucepan, and whisk together 2 tablespoons of sweet rice flour (often called mochiko because of the brand name). Make sure you remove ALL lumps before you turn the heat on. Turn to medium high and do NOT stop whisking. Once you notice the mixture starting to thicken, reduce heat to medium and cook it for about 2 minutes. It's very important to keep mixing to prevent lumps.
After 2 minutes, shut off the heat and stir in your sugar, soy sauce (or fish sauce), and red pepper powder. Then transfer to a blender jar. If you had an immersion blender (stick blender) this would work better.
Add your mixture to blender along with your ½ apple or pear, garlic, and ginger that you have peeled. Blend on high until all the ginger and garlic are mixed in.
Let this mixture cool to around body temperature. Don't skip this step or you'll cook the cabbage.
Once the mixture is cooled, mix together with the carrot, green onion, and daikon (or Korean) radish. As shown in the video, spread a little mixture onto each leaf and outside of the cabbage. Put into, preferably, a glass jar with a tight fitting lid. An old pickle jar would work great for this. Pack it down and you're done.
Let this sit at room temperature overnight, up to 2 days depending on the season. You want it to smell a little sour and you'll see bubbles from the bacteria in the cabbage. Transfer to your fridge and it'll be good for weeks, couple months even.
Obviously you can eat it right after making it, but after 2 days is better. The juice can be used for soups or pancakes and the longer the kimchi sits in the fridge the more sour it tastes. We love it!
Notes
If you want more traditional kimchi, replace the soy sauce with fish sauce. Also if you are making this for someone who is allergic to gluten PLEASE make sure the tamari you use is certified gluten free!! I cannot stress this enough!
Do NOT use table salt for salting the cabbage, you will end up with gooey cabbage.
The apple/pear is optional but adds a yummy mellow flavor to the kimchi. The sugar is also optional, but if you're a baby with spice like I am, it really makes a difference.
You can add as much or as little red pepper powder as you want. I don't like it very spicy so I added ½ cup, but you can add 1½ cups if you like it very spicy!
A probably not very traditional pork and shrimp shumai recipe that is easy to make and very customize-able. Feel free to replace all or most of the shrimp with pork or another meat. Try chicken or lamb, skys the limit! They are lighter in flavor so feel free to double the seasoning if you prefer stronger flavor.
Author: FaylinaMeir
Recipe type: Appetizer
Cuisine: Asian
Serves: 42
Ingredients
Shumai
½ to ¾ lb ground pork
1 lb shrimp, raw shrimp is preferred but if you cannot find choose cooked shrimp that you have thawed for at least 24 hours
¼ cup onion or 6-8 green onion
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons ginger, about a 2 inch piece
1 tablespoon crushed garlic
pepper to taste
1 tablespoon potato or corn starch
30-60 circle style dumpling wrappers or cut square wrappers with a 4 inch circle cutter
Dipping Sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
some chopped onion
some chopped chili peppers or pinch of ground chili, optional for heat
½ teaspoon sesame oil
pinch sugar
Instructions
Shumai
Pulse shrimp, garlic, ginger, and onion in a food processor until small pieces. Try not to blend it into a paste, you want some texture. If you prefer you can turn half of it into a paste, but no more than that.
Mix in a bowl with the pork, soy sauce, sesame oil, and starch powder very well. Use your hand and get in there and squeeze it together. Let this mixture sit at least 15 minutes. Several hours is better up to 8 hours in the fridge.
After at least 15 minutes, get a pot of water boiling with your steam basket. At least an inch, maybe two. I suggest you wrap your lid like shown in the video to prevent water from dropping into your shumai.
For filling, wet the wrapper with water quickly and take 1 tablespoon of meat mixture and place into the middle of the wrapper. Make a circle with your hand and use that to push the filling into the wrapper. Pinch the top a bit and pleat the insides if necessary. Squeeze in the middle a little and push against the counter to flatten the bottom. Repeat this for the entire bowl. You should get 30-60 depending on how much you add into the wrappers. I got 42.
Once you're done making all the shumai, add them to your steamer, you want to fill the steamer but don't let them touch. Steam them for 10-20 minutes depending on the size you made. I checked mine after 15 minutes and they were done. You'll want to cook it until the internal temp reaches 145. (If you don't own a thermometer and you should!) cook until the inside is no longer pink.
Let cool for a few minutes before eating. Serve with soy sauce or a vinegar soy dipping sauce.
Dipping Sauce
Mix together and serve. The onions taste amazing if you let this sit in the fridge overnight however.
2 lbs Roma tomatoes, cored and seeded
1 tablespoon olive oil or grape-seed oil
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning mix
1 1/2 tablespoons oregano
1 heavy pinch red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic
pinch salt or to taste
optionally to thicken: 1 – 2 tablespoons ground flax seeds or half that amount in psyllium husk or ground chia seeds
Directions:
To start out you need to prep your tomatoes by coring them. The best way to do this is to use an apple corer or you can cut the tomatoes in half and use a V cut to remove the core. Then you need to scrape the seeds out using your fingers. While not required, it helps to remove extra liquid and makes the cooking time faster. (don’t throw the liquid and core out, I ate it with a little tabasco as a virgin bloody Mary shot (lol) however you can add this to a salad dressing for extra nutrition or in your morning juice)
In a larger sized skillet add 1 tablespoon grape-seed or olive oil and swirl it coat. Heat on medium high until hot. You can test the heat by adding a few pieces and waiting for them to sizzle. Once hot, slowly add all your tomatoes in as to not splash the oil. Now add your seasoning. I prefer Italian seasoning blend, freshly ground black pepper, and extra oregano with a pinch of hot pepper flakes however you can change these to your specific tastes. Optionally you can add 1 1/2 tablespoons garlic, mined finely. I used a pre-minced version although 5-6 garlic cloves will equal the same amount. Now carefully stir the seasoning. Cover with a lid and cook for 5 minutes, still on medium high, without opening the lid.
After 5-6 minutes remove the lid and stir. At this point your tomatoes should be basically falling apart and super tender. If you have a stick blender you can whizz this up in a pan otherwise transfer to a blender container. Pulse blend for literally 5-10 seconds. Now optionally you can add a thickener like I chose to. I did this so the sauce would “feel” better on the pizza. Add 1-2 tablespoons flax meal to the blender WHILE RUNNING. If you just add this while not running you could just end up with a large ball of thickener. This is also the time to add any salt if desired. If you want you can use psyllium seed or ground chia seeds, however, I would half the amount of thickener as they set foods up faster.
At this point your sauce is ready for use on pasta, a sauce to dip your bread sticks into, or spread onto your pizza crust for amazing homemade pizza!
*Note* the thickener is not required however I find you get a better sauce with it added as most store bought sauces have some form of thickening agent. If you choose not to use it, you will need to cook for 2-3 times as long to get the same consistency OR your sauce is just thinner. It’s your choice, ENJOY! ^.^
Nutritional information is for 1 cup serving. Full recipe makes about 4 1/2 cups:
So this video is FAR too long to recap everything said, however if you know your basic way around a kitchen you will not need the step by step instructions. If you do I would suggest watching the video. If you have any questions you can always ask me in a comment or on facebook.
Ingredients: (3 servings)
6 cups cooked quinoa
3 medium-large baked potatoes
15 ounces snap peas or stringless peas
1 pound brocooli
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic
1/2 inch piece of minced ginger (about 1 tablespoon)
1/2 tablespoon grapeseed oil
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 1/2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 bunches or about 5 ounces green spring (welsh) onions
ultra low sodium soy sauce about 1-2 tablespoons
about 3 tablespoons water
chili sauce or ketchup (or anything else) as seasoning
you will also need a heat resistent spatula and a wok
knife
cutting board
Directions:
Prep your brocolli by cutting the tips of the flourets off. Thinly slice the remaining stocks, they’re good food too! If your peas have strings you will need to string them. I buy the stringless versions but I still take the papery white bits off the ends. You will want to thinly slice your green onions. Slice your prebaked potatoes in smaller sized (bite-sized) pieces. Mince your garlic and ginger finely. If using preminced, make sure to wash well under warm/hot water to remove chemicals.
In a wok add your half tablespoon grapeseed oil, spread it around the pan. Turn the heat on high and add a small piece of brocolli into the pan. When it starts to sizzle you know its hot. Also now is a great time to add 1 1/2 tablespoons of sesame seeds, if using. When the seeds start to pop or the brocolli starts to sizzle, add the rest of your brocolli. Stir well to coat with oil. Then add your peas in. Stir fry this for 3 minutes. Then add your water, one tablespoon at a time while stiring. This helps to steam and cook through the vegetables, giving them better texture. At this point you’ll notice just how green they get, very pretty right?
After all the water is in , add your garlic and ginger as-well-as your green onions. Stir well and continue to stir fry for 5 or so minutes. At this point taste your brocolli for texture. If it is soft enough, add your soy sauce and sesame oil. Stir fry 1-2 more minutes and turn off the heat. Stir in gently your potato slices.
To serve this, place your quinoa on a plate and top with the vegetable potato mixture. Put on chili sauce or ketchup or any other desired sauce and enjoy! This ended up making 3 servings. Here is the nutritional information:
