Sunday Stew

By Sunday afternoon the Thanksgiving leftovers were gone and it was time to start thinking about what to make for dinner. As always, I spent a good portion of my "vacation" doing household chores and errands in my lifelong quest to getting organized. Part of that included some fun time spent hunting for new and interesting recipes and making a meal plan for the week. Actually I got a little ambitious and sketched out a rough plan for the rest of the month! But we'll see how closely I stick to it.

The recipe I decided to try last night was this Autumn Cranberry Beef Stew from Cooking Light. The recipe was really tasty but I think the title is a little misleading. I don't know if maybe I simmered it too high but all the broth cooked out of mine and in the end it was more like a shredded beef served over noodles than a stew. But that's o.k. since as the broth evaporated it left behind all of it's intense flavoring which the meat soaked right up. It made for a nice hearty Sunday evening meal and will be nice leftovers for lunch the next couple of days. Though it is super easy to make, it does have a long cooking time so this is best made on a weekend. I give the recipe four out of five stars and it's going in my make again cookbook. This recipe stands well on it's own but if you want to round it out a little, it would be really good served with steamed broccoli on the side.

Autumn Cranberry Beef Stew

Ingredients

1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 (3-pound) boneless chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 2-inch cubes
Cooking spray
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup fat-free, less-sodium beef broth
2 bay leaves
1 (12-ounce) Guinness Stout
1 (10-ounce) package frozen pearl onions, thawed
1 (8-ounce) package button mushrooms, quartered
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole-berry cranberry sauce
8 cups cooked egg noodles (about 1 pound)
Chopped fresh thyme (optional)

Preparation

Combine first 3 ingredients in a small bowl; sprinkle over beef. Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add beef to pan; cook 6 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Add chopped onion, broth, bay leaves, and stout; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 2 hours or until beef is tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in pearl onions and mushrooms; cook, covered, 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Combine 1/4 cup water and flour in a small bowl. Add flour mixture and cranberry sauce to pan. Cook 5 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Serve with noodles. Garnish with fresh thyme, if desired.

Yield

10 servings (serving size: about 3/4 cup stew and 3/4 cup noodles)

Nutritional Information

CALORIES 479(27% from fat); FAT 14.6g (sat 4.8g,mono 6.3g,poly 1.1g); PROTEIN 39.5g; CHOLESTEROL 138mg; CALCIUM 35mg; SODIUM 239mg; FIBER 2.6g; IRON 6.3mg; CARBOHYDRATE 43.7g

Christina Wilson, Lansdowne, Pennsylvania , Cooking Light, OCTOBER 2007