Warming Winter Orzo

January and February are generally dark, wet and dreary months in England and on the whole, this year is no exception. It is still dark by 5pm, but I noticed yesterday that the outside lights (which are on a timer) came on before it got dark, which means the days are - albeit almost imperceptibly - getting longer. It’s not long now till March when the snowdrops and daffodils will begin to come through here, but in the meantime, there is nothing like a lovely comforting stew to warm the cockles of your heart. 

Orzo is versatile rice shaped pasta that works well in soups, casseroles and anywhere you would use rice or pasta. I am a big fan of orzo, and used it in yesterday's post too. It gives soups and stews a hearty texture and really enhances their flavour as well.

This dish takes a little while to assemble, but once it is cooking you can just leave it until the last few minutes. It is a wonderful to have it stewing away in the oven, the gorgeous smells it gives your home promising the wonderful meal to come.

To serve 4 people you need:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped

3 to 4 carrots, peeled and cut in one inch chunks

¼ cup Madeira or sherry (optional)

1 pound of chuck steak or stewing beef, cubed

1 bottle of (lager) beer (approximately 11 ounces)

4 cups beef stock (approximately)

1 tablespoon tomato paste (tomato puree)

1 teaspoon oregano

1 bay leaf

1 - 14 ounce can of mixed beans, preferably organic, drained & rinsed

1 cup orzo

salt and pepper to taste

You need a large lidded casserole that is suitable for both stove top and oven, or a frying pan for the stove top and a casserole for the oven. Preheat the oven to 350℉ (160℃ or 150℃ for a fan oven).

Heat the oil in the stove top safe casserole or in the frying pan on the stove top over medium heat. Sauté the onion until it begins to become translucent.

Stir in the chuck steak or stewing beef cubes and brown. When the steak is taking on a bit of colour on all sides, add the Madeira or sherry (if using), the lager, 2 cups of the beef stock (reserve the rest for later). and the tomato puree.  Stir until everything is combined.

Add the carrots, drained beans and oregano to this mixture and stir to combine. Cook over medium heat for about five to ten minutes.

If you are using a frying pan, this is the point when you should transfer the mixture to an oven safe lidded casserole. If you are already using a casserole, pop the lid on. Put the casserole into the oven and cook for an hour, stirring once half way through if you remember.

Remove the casserole from the oven. Remove the bay leaf and stir in the orzo. Add the reserved stock and stir. Put the lid back on and return the casserole to the oven.

After about fifteen minutes, remove the casserole from the oven again and check if the orzo has absorbed all the stock. If it has, taste it for tenderness. If it still seems a bit firm, add a bit more stock, cover and return to the oven for about ten more minutes. If there is still stock left in the mixture don’t worry, just return the casserole to the oven for about ten more minutes. By the way, this is a good point to taste the dish for flavour (don’t burn your mouth!) and add salt and pepper to taste if necessary.

When the stock has absorbed and the orzo is al dente, your casserole is done. Remove it from the oven and place it on a heat safe surface. Allow to rest for about ten minutes before serving in warmed bowls with some nice warm bread or rolls on the side.

The 21st Century Housewife’s© Mediterranean Beef Stew

Last night I needed a meal that would comfort and impress, but that would allow me to be out of the kitchen while it cooked and give me flexibility as to when I served it. For me, that meal is nearly always stew, but if you don’t mix it up a bit, everyone can get very bored indeed with this staple go-to dinner. However I find that by playing with some unexpected ingredients, you can develop some really lovely recipes.

I’ve been to both Spain and Portugal and I love the slow cooked dishes they serve there. So I decided to try to replicate some of the tastes I have enjoyed while travelling in the Mediterranean. Many of their dishes involve one of my favourite ingredients – red wine – and they also use vinegars as the perfect foil to it. Vinegar may sound like a funny ingredient to use in a stew, but its complex flavour really adds body and depth to just about any meat dish. It also seems to make all the other flavours just that little bit more intense and satisfying. For me, one of the vinegars that really stands out in cooking is sherry vinegar.

Sherry vinegar is of course made from sherry. It’s aged in oak barrels for at least six months and even up to ten years in the same way as wines and brandies. As well as adding a lovely kick to stews and slow cooked dishes, it is wonderful in salad dressing and gravies.

Last night’s experimentation in the kitchen was incredibly successful and my recipe got rave reviews around our dinner table. I served it with baked potatoes because I had potatoes on hand, but I think next time I’d serve this dish with some rice to soak up the wonderful gravy. Speaking of which, be sure to use a good red wine (one you would be prepared to drink) for this. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but unless it tastes nice in a glass, it isn’t going to taste nice in the dish.

I hope you enjoy my Mediterranean inspired dinner as much as we did!

The 21st Century Housewife's© Mediterranean Beef Stew

¼ cup (2 tablespoons + 2 tablespoons) olive oil
2 -3 medium onions, peeled, halved and sliced
1 pound chuck or braising steak, cut in cubes (roughly one inch square)
¼ cup flour
3 tbsp sherry or red wine vinegar
1 cup good red wine (I used Shiraz)
1½ cups beef stock (from a cube is fine)
1 or 2 garlic cloves
½ tsp dried oregano
¼ tsp dried thyme
¼ tsp pepper

In a large oven safe casserole dish that is also safe on the stovetop – or in a large frying pan – fry the onions gently over medium heat in 2 tablespoons of the oil. Let them soften up slowly until they get all melty and delicious looking. This will take about fifteen minutes.

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to the onions in the pan. Put the heat up a little bit. Coat the pieces of steak in the flour and add to the pan. Cook, stirring constantly, until the steak begins to brown.

Leaving the heat just above medium, add the sherry vinegar and allow it to bubble around in the pan a bit and absorb into the flour coated meat. Pour in the wine and beef stock and stir.

Finely grate in the garlic cloves (or chop them finely and add to the pan if you prefer) and add the spices.

If you are using an oven safe casserole that is safe on the stovetop, at this point you can just move it into the oven. If you are using a frying pan, transfer the contents to an oven safe casserole at this point.

Cook at 325 to 350℉ or 150 to 170℃ (depending on how fierce your oven is) for 1½ to 2 hours, stirring every half hour or so. The beauty of this kind of recipe is that you can adjust the cooking time to suit your serving time. For example if you need to be doing something else and want to cook the stew for longer – say 2½ to 3 hours - just use a lower heat setting (but don’t go below a safe temperature). Personally I never cook below 140℃ which is 280℉.

Leftovers will keep for a couple days in the fridge, and you can easily freeze this stew once it has cooled completely.

The 21st Century Housewife's© Italian Style Beef Stew

I had some really nice chuck steak in the freezer and the other night I wanted to use it up, but I felt like eating Italian food so I used some of the flavours I remember from our visits to Italy. It turned out really well and I was very pleased as it is an easy, nutritious and economical midweek meal. It serves three to four hungry adults, and leftovers can be cooled and stored in the fridge for a couple of days, or frozen if you prefer.

I use my large shallow Le Creuset casserole for this recipe. If you have not got a large casserole that will go from stove top to oven, do the first steps in a frying pan and then transfer the browned beef and onions to an oven-safe casserole before adding the remaining ingredients.

2 – 3 tablespoons mild olive, sunflower or Canola oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic (optional)
1 pound of beef chuck, cut in cubes
½ cup flour
2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
2 cups plain tomato sauce
or 2 small cans of chopped tomatoes
2 cups beef stock
3 to 4 tablespoons basil pesto
1½ to 2 cups uncooked macaroni

In a large casserole that will go from stove top into the oven, gently fry the onion in 2 tablespoons of oil over medium heat until it is beginning to soften. Dredge the chunks of beef in the flour and brown them, stirring frequently, along with the onion in the oil. (You may need to add another tablespoon of oil at this point.)

Add the tomato sauce or cans of chopped tomatoes, beef stock and the basil pesto and stir through well. Stir in the carrots. If you are using garlic, grate the cloves into the stew at this point and stir.

Cook in the oven at 350℉ (or 160 to 170℃ for an hour and a half, stirring every half hour.

If the liquid has reduced a lot, boil about a cup or two of water in a kettle and stir it in at this point as you are going to cook the macaroni in the sauce. (Careful not to overfill the casserole as the macaroni will displace the water when it goes in!) Add the macaroni, stir through and return to the oven for another 15 to 20 minutes or until the macaroni is tender.

Serve with hot crusty rolls.

Is This Cheating?

Doesn't look like it to me...

except aren't those dumplings uniform and beautifully formed?

That's because I - shhh - cheated a bit. You see, I may be one of the only people in the world who doesn't like dumplings. This makes it very difficult to know if the ones I make from scratch are any good. I mean, I'm happy to take my very willing taste testers' word for how good things taste in most cases, but when I genuinely don't like something I make myself, my inner critic's voice gets loud enough to drown out theirs. As a result I have never been able to make dumplings from scratch that I was genuinely happy with.

Which is why I was so delighted when I found these:-



Ready prepared dumplings you bake in the oven and then pop on top of your stew. Aren't they cute?



They are from a grocery store here in England called Waitrose and I think they are a fantastic idea. The best bit is that as you bake them in the oven on a baking sheet they don't get all squashy like homemade dumplings. Although I am told that is a major part of their charm, for me that squashy goodness is kind of yucky. So these I almost liked - a little.

I know some purists might be horrified, but for me, these have been a lifesaver. And my family are delighted to have dumplings without me worrying about whether they taste good or not.

As for the stew, my recipe for that I am very happy with - so I'll share it with you here.

The 21st Century Housewife's© Beef Stew

2 tablespoons oil (any mild olive oil, sunflower oil or canola oil works fine here)
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 pound of stewing beef or braising steak, cubed
¼ cup flour
2 cups of beef stock (made from cubes is fine)
3 - 4 carrots, peeled and cut in 1 inch chunks
3 - 4 parsnips, peeled and cut in large chunks (or cut in half and quartered depending on how big they are)
1 piece of celery
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano
¼ teaspoon pepper

Heat the oil over medium heat in an oven safe casserole that you can also use on the stove top (I use one by Le Creuset). If you don't have a casserole like that, you can start this recipe off in a large frying pan and then transfer the ingredients into the oven safe casserole before you put them in the oven to cook.

Cook the onion in the oil until it begins to soften slightly. Put the flour in a small bowl and coat the cubes of beef lightly with flour before adding them to the onion in the pan. Cook, stirring frequently, until the beef begins to brown.

Pour over the beef stock and stir to make a gravy. It will still be fairly runny at this point but will thicken up as it cooks. Add the carrots, parsnips, celery and seasonings.

Cook in the oven at about 350℉ or 170℃ for an hour and a half or so, stirring about every half hour. The stew is done when the beef and vegetables are very tender - the beef should be almost falling apart. Remove the stick of celery. (Celery adds a beautiful flavour to stews but my husband does not like the texture of it so if I take it out, he is none the wiser. I always eat the celery as a "cook's treat" - and to hide the evidence!)

If you want to add homemade dumplings at this point, you are on your own - or you can "cheat" like I did and add some ready made ones :) I've also served this without dumplings and nobody minded a bit!




(No promotional consideration for this post was provided by Waitrose. The opinions of their product are my own.)