When the weather is bone-chilling cold with gray skies, there’s nothing I crave more than a big bowl of steaming beef stew!  There’s just something warming and comforting about the smell of a slow-cooked stew that warms up your body and puts you in a calm mood.

Yeah, that’s great, but it’s a pain to make, right?  Wrong!  Beef stew is probably one of the easiest things in the world to make.  And, minus maybe a little bit of flour for browning the meat, it’s fairly healthy as well.  Come check out how we make snowy day beef stew on the Suburban Steader Suburban Homestead.

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Recommendation

Beef stew is one of those “stick to your ribs” meals that almost everyone loves.  It’s a pretty easy prep and can be a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ type meal, freeing you up to do other things around the house.  The one tip I have for prep is to make sure you keep the heat quite low when browning the meat and sauteing the onions and garlic.  You want the bottom of the pan to be brown, not black, when you deglaze it.  Another thing to note is that sometimes this recipe can come out a little watery.  If what you end up with is a little too watery for you, take a few cups of the broth out, make a roux (try 2tbsp flour to 2tbsp melted butter), add to the broth and return to the stew.  That should thicken it up.

The recipe above is for a basic beef stew.  Feel free to change things up as you see fit.  Replace the onion with shallots, add other root vegetables like parsnips, turnips and even turnips if you want.  My wife says the mushrooms give it an earthy flavor so, if that’s not your thing, don’t add them.  What I’m getting at is that the recipe I provided is a fairly basic canvas.  Feel free to experiment and tweak it to make it your own.

In terms of serving, I go very simple.  Beef stew is, at its core, a simple dish and does not need a lot of flash added to it.  A nice piece of buttered sourdough bread goes quite well with it.  I recommend a glass of the red wine you used to deglaze the pan or a good craft beer be served alongside it as well.

Give this snowy day beef stew a shot and let us know how it worked out for you!

When you think of rustic, homestead-style cooking what is the first kind of breakfast you think of? If you’re like me, the first things that pop into your head are eggs, bacon and scratch pancakes.

Yes, I know I talked about how I try to eat as Paleo-centric as possible in this post.  That being said, sometimes you just need to kick back with some comfort foods.  Scratch pancakes are incredibly satisfying and easy to make.  Come check out how we make scratch pancakes on the Suburban Steader Suburban Homestead.

Scratch Pancakes Ingredient List

• 1-1/2c All-Purpose Flour
• 3-1/2tsp Baking Powder
• 1tsp Salt
• 1tbsp White Sugar
• 1-1/4c Milk
• 1 Egg
• 3tbsp Butter, Melted

NOTE: Links to recommended dry goods are located at the end of this post. We always recommend sourcing eggs, milk and butter locally if at all possible.

Directions

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together into a big bowl.
2. Create a depression in the middle of the dry mixture and add the milk, egg and melted butter. Mix until smooth.
3. Put a griddle on medium-low heat. Well-oiled cast iron skillets work great for this recipe.
4. Melt a little butter in the skillet and scoop the batter onto the skillet using approximately a 1/4c for each pancake.
5. Brown on one side until the sides tuck under and bubbles appear uniformly across the pancake.
6. Flip and brown the opposite side.
7. Repeat until all batter is used up.
8. Serve warm with butter and maple syrup.

Recommendation

Pancakes are always a crowd pleaser, especially with a little bacon on the side. In fact, cooking the bacon in the cast iron skillet prior to making the pancakes will give you that little bit of ‘lubrication’ you’ll need to make flipping a breeze. Always be sure to clean any debris from the skillet in between rounds of pancakes. You may also need to add some butter here and there to reduce any sticking.

Pancakes are very amenable to additions. Don’t hesitate to add blueberries, chocolate chips, raspberries, bananas or even crumbled bacon to your mixture. A little vanilla in the mixture is also a great addition. Don’t be afraid to explore and experiment!

Give these scratch pancakes a shot this weekend and let us know how it worked out for you!