Hearty Irish Lager Stew

Here's an Irish recipe vegetarians can enjoy on St. Patrick's Day next week, courtesy of Vegetarian Times.  I made this for the holiday last year, and it was a hit!

Ingredients:

• 1 T. vegetable oil, divided
• 8 oz. button or shiitake mushrooms, halved
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (2 t.)
• 1 c. diced onion
• 3 small red potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes (1 ½ cups)
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
• 2 small parsnips, peeled and sliced
• 1 ½ t. tomato paste
• 1 15-oz. can crushed tomatoes
• 1 ½ c. vegetable broth
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme, tied in bundle, plus 1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme, divided
• ½ cup lager beer
• 1 ½ T. all-purpose flour
• 1 cup shredded cabbage
• 2 Tbs. chopped parsley

Method:
1. Heat 1/2 T. oil in large pot over medium heat. Add mushrooms and garlic; sauté 8 minutes, or until mushrooms are browned. Remove from pan. Add remaining 1/2 T. oil to pot. Add onion, and cook 5 minutes or until translucent. Add potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and tomato paste. Cook 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, broth, and thyme sprigs; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Add lager, flour, and mushrooms. Simmer 10 to 15 minutes, or until thickened, stirring often. Remove thyme sprigs, stir in cabbage, and simmer 4 to 5 minutes, or until cabbage softens. Stir in chopped thyme and parsley, and season with salt and pepper, if desired. 

Serves 6.

Roasted Winter Squash Soup

Few things put me in the mood to cook seasonally more than the new chill in autumn air, and today definitely took me there. Here are my modifications to Roasted Pumpkin Soup from the Oct 2009 Martha Stewart Living. And feel free to make your own modifications, too! This soup is savory, but it definitely has a special sweet undertone from the squash.

I feel so autumny!

 

Ingredients:

2 and 3/4 lbs. butternut squash, peeled, halved, and seeded (Martha's recipe said you could alternatively use the same amount of sugar pumpkins. I haven't tried that.)

1 large onion, peeled and quartered

1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms (note that Martha's recipe was for 2 shiitake mushrooms and 2 more cups of water...I haven't tried that way, but you can if you don't have or want to get dried porcinis.)

2 cups boiling water

1 garlic clove, peeled

1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil

1.5 t. salt

freshly ground black pepper

3 cups vegetable stock (I used 2 cups vegetable stock plus 1 cup of frozen tomato water I'd saved from another time when I'd reconstituted sun-dried tomatoes.)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Cut the squash into 2-inch pieces. Put the olive oil and salt in a rimmed baking sheet, and toss the squash, onion, and garlic in it. (Martha's recipe had the 2 fresh mushrooms mentioned above included in the toss.) Spread the coated vegetables into a single layer, and roast them 15 minutes in the oven. (I noticed that the olive oil started bubbling and boiling.) Remove from the oven, toss the vegetables, and roast another 15 minutes or until the squash can be pierced with a fork.

While the vegetables are roasting, reconstitute the mushrooms in 2 cups boiling water. This can be cooling while the vegetables are roasting.

Working in batches, put vegetables in a blender with the stock, mushrooms, and mushroom water. Purée, and move the soup to a soup pot. Warm through, and serve with freshly ground black pepper.