Pre-Heat oven to 250 degrees.
In a frying pan, saute 1-2 cups of mushrooms with a tablespoon of coconut oil.
Add 2lbs of stewing beef with a bit of water in a roaster (what you use to cook a turkey) along with 3 chopped stalks of celery, 1 whole minced onion and the sauteed mushrooms.
Place on the middle rack of your oven and bake for 1.5 hours.
In the meantime, chop a bag of parsnips, bag of carrots (pealed first), half of a finely chopped cabbage, and 3 or 4 small/medium sized turnips cubed.
Once 1.5 hours is up, add vegetables, 1 litre of low sodium organic beef broth, two cloves of chopped garlic, sea salt and pepper to taste and a whole lot of seasonings. Basil, Mrs. Dash, Parsley and salt-free Italian seasoning is great.
Cook for 2 hours now and up the oven temperature to 350 degrees.
After those two hours are up, add a bit more broth if needed (depending how juicy you like it), and about 1/3 cup of almond or coconut flour for thickening. Most recipes call for gravy mix or cornstarch but we don't want that so this can be used as a good substitute. You can also omit this part, just taste the stew and see how you like it so far. You can also add a bit more coconut oil for substance.
Cook for another hour at 350 degrees and 15 minutes before its finished, add 3 cups of frozen peas.
If you have a lot of time, you can reduce the heat again to 250 and cook longer (the longer it simmers, the more flavourful the stew). If not, take out to cool and enjoy! This stew is so hearty you can eat it alone or with some gluten free Amy's crackers if you'd like some crunch. Phew, glad I'm done posting that part!
Last night we were too tired to cook so we decided to go to one of our favourite restaurants in Calgary, Cravings Market. This place is a gem filled with different food stations sure to fulfil even the pickiest eater. Since it was Friday and we were sort of celebrating our engagement, we indulged! We each had an entree; I had a festive meal of turkey, vegetables and homemade stuffing (only had a small bit since it had gluten in it) and the others had wood oven pizza. We also had one of my favourite wines; Liberty School Cabernet Sauvignon, yam fries and flour less chocolate cupcakes, we were stuffed! This all lead to the food coma I experienced last night when your just so full you can barely move haha. It was sooo worth it though. Sometimes you just gotta say to hell with your diet, I'm eating cake! Here is a partial pic of the feast (I gobbled up the turkey way too fast):
This morning I slept in until 7:30am which is seriously late for me, had a delicious home-made pumpkin chai-latte (this time with coffee) and headed to meet a girlfriend for spin class at One Cycle. If you haven't been to this place, you are missing out! By far the hardest spin classes I've ever been to with the absolute best music. Feels like you're in a night club minus the creepy guys and hangover the next day haha. The classes are 50 minutes long and you will be drenched in sweat, I love that. After spin, I laced up my runners and ran for an additional 40 minutes through elbow park in mission. I know to most this seems a bit nuts and honestly I would never recommend this much cardio in a row, except that I'm training for a half-ironman so I need to get used to these long workouts. It was a perfect fall day out so I cranked up my ipod and persevered. I used to live in this part of town and still miss it to this day. The elbow river is beautiful and I took in all the scenery on my run.
After my crazy workout, I came home and steamed in our steam shower my fiance built. This thing is friggin amazing and I'm not just saying that because of him. First off its huge and can probably fit about 4 adults comfortably, has a long bench to sit or lay on, and chroma therapy lights that are supposed to have health benefits that I actually can't remember at the moment. I will post pictures of this baby soon for you to see. It was the perfect ending for my sore muscles. Then I was starving and needed some carbs so had some Love Crunch gluten free granola (such a great snack) with some Greek yogurt all mixed together...so good. Then about an hour later I had some left over stew, training makes me so hungry I swear and LOTS of water. Its so important to hydrate; at least 8 classes of water a day, and I probably double or triple that some days.
Then it was time to grocery shop, my favourite task! Since the in-laws are here, we decided to take a family trip to the store...on a Saturday..of a long weekend. It was busy to say the least. We made it out in about an hour and we got to cookin. I'm taking advantage of my mother-in laws culinary skills so today we are preparing two gluten-free meat loafs, lasagna, another batch of stew and about a pound of meatballs for us to freeze. YUMMMMM! The best part is that its all 100 percent grass fed beef. We ordered half a cow a couple weeks ago so our freezer is bursting with meat. Who wants to come over for dinner?? Here are a few pics of what we prepared today. Most of its still in the oven so I'll have better pics tomorrow :)
Tonight we're having some friends over for dinner (lasagna) which I will post tomorrow and probably watching a movie. These are what a lot of my Saturday nights have turned into lately but I think I'm OK with that :) I'm planning a girl's trip soon so lots to look forward to! Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far and I really appreciate you reading my blog. Samantha's Bewitchin Kitchens has brought me so much joy lately and I really look forward to posting and hearing your feedback so thank you.
Wishing you lots of blessings and love,
Sam :)
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