One Of The Fam's Faves...

Mmmmmm, this inspires me to get to the Commissary after math this morning... then Dr. Oz... then lunch... ALRIGHT sometime before now and 16:00.




This is a one pot dish that with finesse can be cooked up in an hour and thirty if you take your time, or 30min if you have a pressure cooker, or if you cut corners you can have this meal on a plate in 50min. I like quick but when cooking this I was in the mood for something fulfilling and easy, well easy in that it is one pot.
First-


I case out my herbs and prepare my usual suspects: cinnamon, rosemary, thyme, toasted cumin seed, black pepper, bay leaf, grey sea salt and oregano, vegetable bouillon, beef bouillon, brown sugar and a new one I like is lovage leaf. Lovage has a kind of celery seed like flavor which is why I didn't use celery seed in this. Be VERY easy with the cinnamon, put a small pinch in your hand and use half of that. Being lazy, I threw all my dry herbs and vegetable bouillon cube into the grinder (my herb grinder is a very nice Hamilton Beach "Custom Grind Deluxe" coffee grinder. It has only been used for actual coffee about five times in the four or five years I have owned the thing. It and my marble mortar n' pestle are my absolute loves in utensils... Back to the recipe; when I am not lazy, in the m.n'p., I grind up the seeds and large and tuff leaved herbs such as the rosemary and lovage. This is to keep the Peanut Gallery happily focused on enjoying the food.


The fresh ingredients used here were large diced/quartered/whatever potatoes, what was left of carrots--that I seriously thought we had more of; a good sized onion, two very large cloves of garlic; a small red Japanese pepper that measures about a 6-7 heat rating. What is missing from this is celery and these fabulous mushrooms called maitake, that have a backbone in cooking and do very well with red meats and are outstanding in hearty vegetarian dishes. I didn't have time to grab some from Daie's grocery (a very large mall outside the main gate). If making this a vegetarian dish definitely add radish to this.Throw the prepped veggies in the pot that has been preheated on med-high with oil (I used canola oil). Sauté the veg till the smaller onion pieces begin to get glassy (with the space in the pot and all the veggies, the onions didn't really begin to caramelize). Once the glassy begins, throw in the beef and drizzle a bit more oil into the fare. Continue to sauté everything.
When I am making this as a vegetarian dish, I try to get the onions to caramelize before adding the rest of the ingredients by sauteing everything on a bit higher heat or wider pot.
Speaking of the pot, the pot in the picture is 8 quarts.




When I cook, I always keep a full pot of nearly boiling water on "hot" standby. This aids in getting dinner on the table faster, if you seem to loose time as I do. It also make a great way of distracting the restless natives by offering them hot tea while they wait. The beef that has been added will not really get browned if cooking in something like I cooked it in. An alternative to beginning this meal is to brown the beef first; take out the beef, to sauté the vegg, then add the beef. That isn't what I did this time, because I was being lazy and there were no complaints nor left overs in the end.
Add the potatoes, add the seasoning, add the beef bouillon, malt vinegar and worcestershire sauce. Next add the hot standby water till it is nearly covering everything--and I say nearly, because when you stir the fare, you will see that there was wasted space the food was not fitting into and if you fill the pot till everything is covered and then stir, you will have a very wet pot of food in the end. This is a winter hearty meal, not a summer hearty meal, so having lots of liquid is a detractor in this pot. Add the 1/4 cup of barley, add the maitake mushrooms if you have them. Stir a bit more to get things settled, cover and bring to a boil. Once it starts going, turn down the heat to low-medium or till the pot is at a gentle rolling boil. At this time, get yourself to the can of black beans, a colander and a sink with running water. Drain the beans into the colander and rinse. You are rinsing to cut down on the amount of fiber--which one does need, however there is a limit and black beans are quite notorious; so make your entire gasto-system happier: rinse the beans. Add the beans, stir and cover the pot again leaving it to merrily boil at a gentle roll. As a vegetarian dish I use two cans of beans and another bouillon serving. When I have the chance I love using vegetable broth, but that is kind of hard to come by here at times. So the other option I love is Better Than Bouillon's Vegetable Bouillon. That stuff is great, you can use it in stir-fry and so much more due to it being in a paste.
The fare is done when the potatoes are able to be pierced with a fork without too much effort.
While this pot melds its flavors into one delight, take the time to make your favorite cornbread batch, I did.
I didn't bother with much else in vegetable because we had fruit for dessert--a blend of end of season berries, early mikans (Japanese tangerines) and great honey dew melon. Sorry, I forgot to get a picture of that.