Beef and Guinness Stew

It all started when I went to my favorite Irish pub for dinner and ordered the beef and Guinness pie. Jason told me how good it was. It was fantastic, except for one thing; the restaurant has recently started doing frozen take-out for some of their more popular dishes. Guess who got the frozen reheat served to her? (Me! Me! Pick me please!!!!) It was still frozen on the inside. That's bullshit! What really kills me is that they sell it for a fraction of the price when you do the takeout.
In my bitterness of feeling betrayed by all that I loved about the pub, I though, "I can make this and freeze it myself. Then, if I want freakin' left-overs, I can eat them at home for free. " A little internet research later, and a quick consult with Mr. Jamie Oliver (we're not actually friends, I just checked the cookbook) I came up with this recipe. Pretty tasty!

This one is involved so I'll start you off with the full list of ingredients:

Ingredients
• olive oil
• 2 red onions, peeled and chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 2 tbs. butter, plus extra for greasing
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 sticks of celery, trimmed and chopped
• 4 large mushrooms, sliced
• 1 package stew meat
• a few sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked and chopped
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 can of Guinness Stout
• 2 heaping tablespoons plain flour
• 1 cup grated Cheddar cheese
• 1 package puff pastry

In a large pot, heat a about 2 tablespoons of olive oil on medium low heat. Add the onions cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Turn the heat up, add the garlic, butter, carrots and celery. Cook this for about 10 more minutes.

In a separate pan, quickly brown the stew meat. Add it to the veggie mix along with the rosemary, salt and pepper. Fry fast for 3 or 4 minutes, then stir in the flour (it'll make a thick gooey paste.) Pour in the Guinness, plus 1 1/2 cans full of water and bring to a simmer. Cover the pot with a lid and cook for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally. If it looks like it needs to thicken up, uncover it. If it gets too dry or thick, add 1 cup of water.

Add the mushrooms and cook for about 10 more minutes (this way they don't turn into mush.) Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese. Fill oven-proof bowls about 2/3 of the way with the hearty stew.



Cover with puff pastry and bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees or, serve with thick slices of a good crusty bread.



Enjoy!

Cream Puffs

Alright folks, here you have it; Cream Puffs
These are oh-so-satisfying and impressive looking. They're a bit of work, about 8 million calories, but not actually hard to make.

First, the filling:
1 large (5.1oz) package of Jello Instant Vanilla Pudding mix. I KNOW, I KNOW! It feels like cheating but I promised they'd be easy. Nobody ever asks what the filling is anyway and if they do you say "Vanilla Creme".
16oz heavy cream (2 cups or the small container)
1 cup milk

Mix all of this together and then refrigerate it to set. If you do this first it'll be ready to go by the time the puffs have cooled.

The Puffs
1 stick of butter
1 cup of water
1/4 teaspoon of salt (Haha! I laugh at you again if you think I measure this. I just add a "dash")
1 cup of flour
4 eggs

In a decent sized pot bring the butter and water to a rolling boil. This is when I scramble around for the other ingredients, which are thankfully few. It gets to boiling rather quickly. Bring it off the heat and add in the flour and salt. You can mix this up easily with a spoon to form a pretty satisfying ball of dough reminiscent of playdough, without the cool colors or creepy smell. I throw the whole thing into my 50lb Kitchenaid mixer. (On a side note, that monstrosity was given to me by my cousin Nino. He found it at a garage sale on Singer Island or some such. It lived in my car for a year because I couldn't motivate myself to carry it up to my then 3rd floor apartment. Once I did, it got a major cleaning with the Magic Eraser (it really is magical!!!) and some bleach. It is now my FAVORITE kitchen appliance. Love it! Thank you Nino!)

Back to the task at hand, I put the dough in the mixer and add the eggs one at a time, making sure it gets really well mixed in between. It has to mix continuously so that the eggs don't cook in the hot dough, but rather later, in the oven.

You end up with this beautiful golden sludge that smells like eggs and butter (irresistible to me). Drop it by heaping tablespoonfuls onto an un-greased cookie sheet. I like to put down parchment paper, but you don't have to.



Pop those bad boys into the oven for about 20 minutes at 425 degrees. I get really excited every time I make these because they puff up so impressively and I feel all accomplished. This is why I love food.



The next oh-look-at-me-I'm-a-real-chef thing you get to do is fill the puffs. Put the filling into a large ziplock bag. I set my bag up in a tall container and just scoop it in (see "exhibit D" below:)



Try to squeeze as much air out of the bag as you can and then get all the filling onto one side. The goal is turn turn this into your own pastry bag. Snip a small piece of the corner off the bag and you have the perfect tool for squeezing the filling directly into your mouth. It's also good for filling the puffs. I make a small hole in each puff (once they've cooled) and squeeze in the filling (it's like putting toothpaste into a balloon. Is that weird? That's the best description I can think of.) I like mine pretty full so that they kind of explode in your mouth. Give them a good dusting of powdered sugar, thus ensuring your 8 million calories, and enjoy!