Beef Stew

One of my all time favorites is beef barley soup. I don't eat beef often but sometimes I crave the flavor and I know the B-12 found in beef is good for me. Combining it with a variety of colorful root veggies produces the most wonderful sweet and savory + healthy lunch or dinner. In addition to its fiber, barley is also a good source of niacin a B vitamin that provides numerous protective actions against cardiovascular risk factors. Eating a serving of whole grains, such as barley, at least 6 times each week is a good idea, especially for postmenopausal women with high cholesterol, high blood pressure or other signs of cardiovascular disease (CVD).
If you prefer not to eat beef this soup would be great with lamb, chicken or turkey.

Ingredients

Beef Stew

1 pound stew beef, cut into small cubes

3 teaspoons olive oil

1 Tablespoon or a bit more flour

1 cup small diced white onion

(1 cup small diced peeled parsnips

1 cup small diced golden beets

1 cup peeled carrot, small diced

½ cup celery small diced

6 - 8 white button or cremini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

8 cups low sodium beef or chicken broth-cold or room temp

1 or 2 cubes of high quality beef base

1/2 cup pearl barley

water as needed

I sprig fresh thyme

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Method

You can prepare this in a slow cooker if you have one. Just add everything to your cooker once you've browned the meat.

1. Heat a large skillet or pan-non-stick is easiest to clean-with 2 Tbls. olive oil.
Before adding the meat be sure that it is dry or you'll end up steaming the meat rather than browning it.

2. Add as much of the meat to the pan as will cover the bottom with no overlap of pieces. Again this will ensure that the meat browns and browning, or caramelizing, adds flavor.

3. Don't move the meat until one side is nicely browned. Then quickly add some salt and pepper and toss or stir the meat so it flips to another side. This does not have to be exact, just sauté the pieces til they are more or less all browned.

4. If you have meat left to do, sprinkle this batch with a bit of the flour, stir until the meat absorbs it, then remove meat to the pot you'll be cooking in.

5. Clean the pan with a paper towel, add the remaining oil, let it get hot and put in the last batch of meat. Repeat the above process.

6. Pour in the broth and barley. Stir well to move any pieces off the bottom.

7. Allow this to come to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 10 minutes.

8. At this point you can add the vegetables, thyme, beef base. Stir, turn up the heat, bring to a boil again, lower temp and simmer for 30-40 minutes.

9. Taste it after 30 minutes to see if the seasoning is right. If you want more salt, pepper or other dried herbs add them now.

Beef, Roots and Barley Soup

Gregory Anne Cox is a professional chef and certified life coach who has been dishing up all you can eat servings of wellness information for 15 years. At midlife everything shifts and the mind and body changes that follow can be frustrating. Enter The Smart Woman's Mind and Body Tune Up, Gregory Anne's writings, recipes and seminars are designed to provide tips, tools, sound information and a healthy dose of humor to help women feel good, stay in shape, and create their best next half.

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Basic crab stew recipes generally include a few everyday spices and a few everyday vegetables. Most recipes also use chicken stock rather than fish stock, which can be hard to find. But, when making gourmet seafood stew for your own family, nothing but the best will do.

You can make basic crab stew on the stove, or you can use a crockpot and slow cook it for several hours. Either way, it's delicious and perfect for when eaten in front of a fireplace on a cold winter evening.

Beef Stew

Crab Stew Recipe

Ingredients You Will Need:

1 pound frozen crab meat

4 cups fish stock (see recipe below)

1 16-ounce can stewed tomatoes

1 can kernel corn

1 large green pepper, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

1 spice bag (see recipe below)

1 clove garlic, chopped

2 bay leaves

Set the frozen crab meat into a shallow dish, and set aside. Combine all other ingredients in a large saucepan, and bring it to a boil. As soon as it boils, reduce the heat, and simmer for about a half hour.

Remove the bay leaves, and add the crab meat to the stew. Simmer the stew until the crab is fully cooked. Do not serve undercooked, but take care not to overcook the stew, either. Serve with thick slices of bread.

Fish Stock

Ingredients You Will Need:

2 pounds of fish (heads and tails optional)

1 large onion

½ cup celery, including leaves

½ lemon, sliced

Whole cloves

Whole black peppercorns

Parsley

Salt

Boil all ingredients in about eight cups of water. Simmer for about one hour, stirring often. Strain the stock, discarding fish and bones.

Spice Bags

Spice bags can be made with cheesecloth, intended to be placed into the stew and withdrawn - bag and all before serving - or to be opened up and dumped into the stew when you make it. Use one tablespoon of each of the following spices: rosemary, thyme, parsley, saffron, black pepper and garlic salt.

When cooking crab stew, some people add saffron to make it more exotic. While saffron is not necessary in crab stew, this spice gives ordinary stew a new and different taste. When cooking with saffron, use only a pinch. The flavor will be more intense the second day.

Basic Crab Stew Recipe

For more information on stew, visit the food section of Life123.com.

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Here is a way to enjoy eating fresh foods in season. Root vegetables, pumpkin and a hearty beef stew make an excellent meal to warm you up on a cold day in fall or winter.

Pumpkin will keep through most of the winter, so be sure and grab extras to store back in a cool place in your house or cellar.

Beef Stew

Pumpkins are nutrient-dense. They are loaded with beta-carotene, vitamin C, potassium, fiber, manganese, folate, omega-3, and vitamin B1. Pumpkins keep your heart healthy and help with asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. They keep you healthy!

The first step is to make your basic stew. Stews are easy. Just cook up some roast cubes or chunks and throw your favorite veggies into a pot to boil. There's no one right way to make a stew. Mine are different every time I make them because I rotate what veggies we are eating.

So, cook the meat, and boil some root veggies, like potatoes, carrots, green beans and corn. Amounts and types of veggies are your choice. Add some greens like spinach or collards to the mix. This puts lots of magnesium and potassium into your stew.

Next, cut the top off of a small pumpkin for a lid. Scrape out the seeds and stringy fibers. Don't throw away the seeds-you can roast them for a tasty snack.

Put your meat, vegetables and the broth it made into the pumpkin. Put the pumpkin lid back on and bake at 375° for 1 1/2 - 2 hours until the pumpkin is tender.

Ladle the stew into bowls and be sure to scoop the pumpkin flesh from the sides of the pumpkin too. Enjoy your beef stew in a pumpkin pot! And eat fresh foods in season as much as possible.

©2009 Shanna Ohmes

Beef Stew in a Pumpkin Pot

Discover more natural foods and how to prepare them by clicking the following link The Natural Living Site

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A burning sensation in the chest caused by indigestion is called Acid Reflux. It is usually centered in the middle of the chest and thus also known as heartburn. The more serious and chronic form of acid reflux is called GERD, or Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disease. It is generally misunderstood as heartburn. While one can greatly minimize the symptoms of acid reflux at home, for GERD one needs to meet the physician.

Now, let's learn some of the acid reflux diet recipes to cure acid reflux at home.

Beef Stew

You can begin your day with apple pancakes, stuffed apple dumplings, flour grain pancakes, banana muffins, French toast or buttermilk pancakes. Do not have oily stuff in the morning.

To prepare French toast, the usual ingredients required are eggs, sugar, salt, milk, 10-12 slices of bread, butter and maple syrup.

However, we will use the available low-fat egg substitutes instead of eggs. Instead of creamy milk, skimmed or low fat milk would be preferred. Whole wheat bread would go well with your digestive disorder. Brown sugar would be preferred over ordinary sugar in our condition. Similarly, low fat butter or margarine would be preferred over its more common substitute.

For lunch you can go for salads to avoid the inconveniences due to the rise of acids. This goes particularly for those who generally have lunch in their offices. Greek salad, Chinese salad, noodle salad, chicken salad with salmon, six bean salad, potato salad and all are good for suppressing this condition.

The technique for preparing these salads is also the same as that of preparing breakfast. Let's take potato salad as an example. The usual ingredients in this case are potato, hard-cooked eggs, celery, onion, mayonnaise, mustard, salt and pepper to taste and chopped parsley.

To make it low acid inducing, the differences would be the low-fat mayonnaise and the egg substitute. Onion, mustard and pepper would also be avoided as these are acidic in nature. You can however add other vegetables like beans and carrots to aid in our digestion process.

For appetizer, in the evening, cauliflower, broccoli, English cucumbers, radishes, green and yellow zucchinis, carrot sticks, whole small mushrooms, six bean soups, beef stew, iced cucumber soup, spinach soup, mixed vegetable soup or any other non-acidic appetizer can be chosen.

And last but not least, dinner would be early, preferably two hours before going to bed. You can take baked chicken with rice, beef and vegetable stir-fry, chicken and vegetable stir-fry, sesame chicken kabobs, pasta and vegetable frittata, baked broccoli and rice, cashew vegetable fried rice, beef stew and so on. Foods like tomato sauce lasagna are a strict no-no. And the oils used in all these must be low in fat.

Hopefully, the acid reflux diet recipes discussed above will help you. Also, curtail the consumption of micro-waves, frozen, pre-packed and processed foods as well.

Looking For Some Acid Reflux Diet Recipes?

Looking for info about the best Acid Reflex Diets? Just go to http://www.best-acid-reflux-diet.com

Acid Reflux Diet

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