Beef In Guinness

 Beef In Guinness

    I know, I know. It's been awhile since I've written.  Life has been a lot lately and I just haven't been cooking much from my cookbooks.  I also had considered discontinuing my blog, but I have decided to keep it going and just cook and write.  Even if it is just for me.  

    This recipe is from a recipe in "Irish Country Cooking - Traditional and modern recipes from the Emerald Isle", published in 1995.  First off, this was pretty much my single most expensive recipe to make. The cost of the skirt steak I bought almost deterred me, but I'd had my mind set on making this, as it was the winner of a poll I ran on what I should make next.  Some of the directions did not make any sense and that was partly due to directions like "Bring to the boil....", but I made it work.  

    The bad grammar and nonsensical, incomplete instructions (I'm not perfect myself, but this was bad) were distracting, but like I said, I made it work.  That is kind of the cool thing about cooking.  The recipe can be modified as necessary and sometimes it still turns out good. This would be perfect with chunked or mashed potatoes (Hello! It's in an Irish cookbook), which I somehow had neglected to buy, so I served with rice and a slice of toasted sourdough bread.   I thought the dish turned out pretty good and I would think about making it again, when beef is less expensive.  

Ingredients:

2-3lbs Beef Skirt Steak

Seasoned Flour (It doesn't say what to season it with, so I used a little pepper and some crushed Italian seasoning)

Oil or "dripping" (I guess that's supposed to be "drippings"; I used a bit of oil in my pan)

2 Onions, sliced (I used sweet onions)

3 Carrots, sliced (I used 2 carrots, because I simply did not buy the correct amount)

4 Garlic, 4 whole cloves (I left them whole, but I don't see why you couldn't slice the garlic)

1 Large bunch of herbs (Unspecified; I used the crushed Italian seasoning)

Salt to taste (I didn't add salt)

Pepper to taste 

2 1/2 Cups Beef Stock

2 Bottles of Guinness beer (I used extra stout)

1 Oyster per person, optional (I don't eat oysters and I don't understand why this is an optional ingredient; like why put an oyster on top of each serving?)

Directions:

Season your flour in a small bowl. Cut up your skirt steak into small pieces, about 2 to 3 inches and dip into your seasoned flour. Fry in hot oil. The recipe does not specify how long to cook it.  I cooked for several minutes to ensure it was fairly well browned. No need to thoroughly cook, since there is another 2 hours of cooking time. I removed the browned meat to a platter and cooked the onions and garlic in the oil. The recipe says to add the meat, onions and "other vegetables" (there's only one other vegetable {the carrots}) to a casserole dish, followed by the herbs and seasoning (the salt and pepper, I guess). I used a cast iron dutch oven for the whole recipe, because the recipe itself calls for bringing the ingredients to a boil, turning to low and cooking for 1 1/2 hours, before adding the Guinness beer. And to me, that means keeping it on the stove and a casserole dish is for putting in an oven.  So, getting back to it, after adding the beer, bring it back to a boil and then turn to low and simmer for another 30 minutes.  

The recipe instructions in the cookbook call for removing the meat with a slotted spoon and serving,  then reducing the liquid to half for the sauce. Then, it says to pour the sauce over the beef again, season to taste and then add the oysters if you are using oysters and serve with hot, crusty bread.  What I did, was remove the meat, carrots and onions and make a light gravy with the liquid, before re-combining everything in a large casserole dish for serving. This helped make sure all of the ingredients were hot.

If you try this, feel free to comment. 

Guinness Extra Stout

Browning the skirt steak

Skirt steak, onion, carrots, garlic and seasoning ready for the beef stock

My finished product! Beef in Guinness

    

Grandma Marlin's Norwegian Best Bean Hotdish

 Grandma Marlin's Norwegian Best Bean Hotdish

    This recipe is adapted from The Centennial Harvest - A Collection of Recipes from The First Unitarian Church of Dallas. My church. We are Unitarian Universalists.  It was founded in 1899; the 100 year anniversary was celebrated in 1999 and the cookbook was published in 2000.  I joined the church in about 2009/2010. The original recipe was submitted by a member and due to this cookbook only being 10 years old, I'm not going to name her, for privacy reasons.  A friend in the Twitterverse, said she has a cookbook with a very, similar recipe. It goes by the name "4 Bean Bake" in her book and that recipe is popular with her family. 

    Yeah, so this recipe wasn't complicated, but I felt like I used a lot of bowls in making it. I did the washing up, while it was in the oven. When it was finished, there was more liquid than I'd thought there would be, but I liked it. I served my Best Bean Hotdish over some brown rice and had two little pieces of buttered and toasted sourdough bread (to sop up the juices).

Ingredients:

1 Big Can of Baked Beans (I used a large can of Bush's Original Baked Beans)

2 Cans Kidney Beans

2 Cans Great Northern Beans (The original recipe calls for butter beans)

1 lb Bacon, cut into 1 inch strips

3 Large Yellow Onions; Sliced and then sliced in half (The original recipe calls for 4 large Bermuda onions, sliced)

1 Cup Brown Sugar

1 Tsp Garlic Powder

1/2 Tsp Dry Mustard

1/2 Cup Vinegar

    Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.  Drain the beans, saving the liquid and mixing the beans together in a large bowl.  The original recipe also says to cut your bacon into 1 inch strips, but you can certainly cut into smaller pieces if you like. Whatever size you choose, you'll fry it gently, not letting it get crispy, and remove from your pan. Put your onion in the skillet and fry for several minutes (about five minutes at least), stirring to coat with the bacon grease.  Whisk together the last four ingredients and stir into the onions. Simmer for 20 minutes. If the liquid evaporates, add in a little of the reserved bean juice, so it doesn't stick, because you don't want the onions to get dry. Mix the onion mixture into the beans, add the pieces of bacon which you had set aside and combine all ingredients. Pour the mixture into a large casserole dish.  The original recipe says a covered casserole dish. I had to use the largest casserole dish that I own, which does not have a lid. Since my dish did not have a lid, I used foil and it worked fine. Bake for 50 minutes at 350 degrees. I really don't know how this could ever fit in a regular sized casserole dish, because it made a huge amount. 

    Serve as a side dish or over rice.  The side of sourdough bread went really well with this dish, because again, "hello!!" there was juices to soak up. I have no idea how many servings to say this made, so let's just say "a lot", because it was a lot. 

    The verdict? I really, liked this recipe and would definitely make this again. 

Great Norther, Kidney and Baked Beans

Onions

The bean, onion and bacon mixture.

Yass!!! It looks yummy, just out of the oven.

I wasn't going to include two pictures of the finished dish, but you can see my UU (Unitarian Universalist) Flaming Chalice (our church symbol) tattoo, so I'm including this photo, because my church means a lot to me. 

A close-up of yumminess.