Ahh…this weather has been so erratic lately with snowstorms, severe rain, to above average temperatures suddenly plummeting overnight dipping back down to below freezing. My immune system needs a jump start.
So the other week when I was grocery shopping I kept noticing butternut squash on sale in two separate grocery store, from prepackaged cut cubes to frozen individual bags of squash. This immediately got me thinking about adding butternut squash to my next recipe. And that is EXACTLY what I did.
Most of you already know that I cannot tolerate any gluten or dairy and I do not always have a desire to eat meat, call it changing taste buds, I just don’t care to eat a lot of meat. BUT, I wanted to make my stew with Angus sirloin. The funny thing about this recipe is that I initially started off making this a soup but then I decided to make this into a savory stew instead.
I started this recipe the same way I would if I were making a soup. I diced, onion and celery, and carrots in some olive oil and sautéed them until they were translucent. I then added my butternut squash, because I had the frozen version, and I wanted to brown the outside of the squash to give the stew more flavor, as well as kinda crisp up the squash so it wouldn’t be too mushy when I was finally done with the stew. At this point, I also added my canned tomatoes and grated turmeric. Once the vegetables were almost done I then added my beef broth and vegetable broth and fresh thyme to season the stew.
So, at this point, I have butternut squash soup, but I wanted to make this a stewy-version. Since I always keep “staple foods” on hand I added a gluten-free quinoa flour to the “soup” and it quickly “thickened” up to more of a stew-like-consistency. Again, however, you prefer to make it!
I also, don’t mind sharing my mishaps too, but I totally forgot to add frozen green beans to the stew which was not a big deal, but the thing is, with soups or stews you can literally add anything as much or as little as you like and really do no wrong. It’s whatever your preferences are or whatever vegetables you have that you want to use up.
I hope you all enjoy this dish!
Ingredients:
- 1.5 cups of Butternut squash I used the frozen chunks from Costco
- 1/4 c. Fresh parsley
- 1 pound of Cubed Angus steak
- 1 8 oz. can Diced tomatoes
- Sprigs of Fresh Thyme
- 1 tsp. fresh grated Turmeric
- 1/2 c. Green beans
- 1/3 cup of Quinoa flour (Optional step, but you may need a bit more or less depending on the amount of stock you add)
- 1 small yellow onion
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 3 large Carrots
- 4 stalks of Celery
- 3-4 16 ounces of Beef and Vegetable stock
Directions:
- In your pot, drizzle the olive oil and add your diced garlic, yellow onion, celery, carrots, and butternut squash then sauté. (I added the butternut squash here to brown it a bit so that it locked in the flavors from the onions and garlic).
- In another pan, place your sirloin cubed steak and cook until almost done. Make sure not to overcook the meat here because the meat can become chewy and hard. I choose to cook my meat in a separate pan so that I do not add any additional fat from the meat to my soup.
- Once the onions, garlic, celery, and carrots are almost cooked add your additional vegetables and slowly cook so that the vegetables are slightly tender. Then add the sirloin cubed steak.
- Slowly pour in your beef and vegetable stock and fresh thyme
- Simmer on low and add your quinoa flour to thicken the soup.
Enjoy!!!
LEMONBERRY & FIG 