Filipino Beef Kare Kare

When it's a pandemic, and you live in the Near North, you have to make your own ethnic dishes!

I used this recipe, with the following variations.

Ingredients:

• ​one package of beef stewing cubes from Dalew Farms [I am told this recipe is really meant to be made with Oxtail, which tastes much better]
• one cup of Soda Water from my Soda Stream
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• one eggplant, cut into elongated slices
• one package of fresh okra from Freshco, tops and bottoms sliced off
• one medium bag of baby bok choy, ripped apart and rinsed
• three tablespoons peanut butter 
• five teaspoons of minced garlic
• one medium yellow onion, chopped 
• two tablespoons gluten free Tamari sauce (I intend to use fish sauce next time, but this was the best alternative to the traditional shrimp paste used in this recipe)
• a mix of one half tablespoon ground turmeric to 1.5 tablespoons ground paprika [This is to replace the colour from the Annatto seeds, which I don't have access to]
• two teaspoons of Sambal Oelek
• salt to taste
• olive oil

Directions:

• Rinse the beef, and then soak in the soda water until it is time to cook it
• Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil on Sauté function in your Instant Pot.  Add the black pepper and two teaspoons of the garlic. 
• Once the garlic is sautéed, drain and add the beef and fry for a couple of minutes, until the beef has changed colour.
• Add two cups of water and cook on 'Manual' for 50 minutes (on my Intant Pot this is the basic pressure cooker setting.  If you don't have an Instant Pot, you can pressure cook or slow cook the beef to make it soft.)
• Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a wok.   Add one teaspoon of the garlic.  Add the eggplant and okra and stir fry on high heat until about halfway done.   Then add the bok choy and finish frying until just tender.   Remove the veggies from the pan.
• Add another tablespoon of oil to the wok.  Add the onion, two teaspoons of the garlic, and the ground spice mixture.   Sauté a few minutes, until garlic is no longer raw. 
• Add the peanut butter, the tamari sauce, the Sambal Oelek, and the beef broth (I used all the broth, but you can use less if you want the sauce to be thicker).    Cook until sauce bubbles. 
• Then, add the meat and vegetables and cook until warmed through. 
• Crushed peanuts would have been nice on top of this dish, but I didn't have any.  

 ​
When you make a special Filipino dish you HAVE to eat it with freshly made white rice.  It's a rule.   Ask a Filipino person, they'll tell you ;)   

I cannot sing the praises of Dalew Farms enough.  They're local, they're nice, they're humane, and the meat is delicious!    The also put a lot of work into Click Fork, which is a local online farmers' market worth taking a look at.   

Butternut Squash Soup and Savory 'Cheddar' Biscuits

This lunch is a great example of making food with substitutions and variations.   I made this lunch at the home of one of the people in my social bubble who didn't have all the the tools and ingredients I'm used to having on hand.    It was absolutely delicious, even if the biscuits were flat!  Who cares, really, if they taste good?  

Biscuits:

I used this recipe, with the following variations.

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Baking Flour
• 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum [didn't have it, so I didn't use it]
• 1/4 cup cornstarch (or try potato starch or arrowroot) [I would have preferred to use arrowroot, which I keep in my pantry, but I used cornstarch today]
• 1 tablespoon baking powder [as you can tell from the flat biscuits, this was way too old to work properly!]
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt [sea salt worked just fine]
• 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into a 1/4-inch dice or grated and chilled [I just used Vegan Becel straight out of the fridge]
• 1 cup buttermilk, chilled [I followed the substitution suggestion in the recipe and combined one tablespoon of white vinegar with one cup of oat milk made with this recipe.  I didn't know that slimy oat milk was a going concern, but apparently I managed to avoid it with a successful Google search.]
• 1/2 cup of Earth Island Shredded Cheddar (non-dairy) cheese
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 425°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper and set it aside.
• I mixed up the dry stuff in a large bowl, added the margarine, then the liquid, and then the cheese.    I just dumped globs of it onto the parchment paper.  
• Place the baking sheet in the center of the preheated oven and bake until lightly golden brown all over (about 15 minutes). Remove from the oven and allow to set briefly before serving

Soup

Soups in a Vitamix are so easy!   I fried two yellow onions until they became translucent, and started to brown.   I dumped some  leftover turkey broth (from the holidays), the onions, roasted butternut squash (peeled, although I recently heard you can eat the skin), a drained can of black eyes peas (for protein, I would have used white beans if I had some), and about a teaspoon of dried ginger.   I then added enough water for the Vitamix to be able to do its thing.    I left it running at high speed long enough for the soup to become hot (less than 10 minutes).   SO GOOD!  

Mashed Rutabaga, Lime Black Beans, and Strawberries From Too Far Away

These fresh strawberries were a delicious treat!  Why do I say the strawberries are from too far away?   Buying strawberries in the winter means that:

• they're often grown in locations that use more pesticides than Canada
• they're often picked before they are ripe 
• they're transported long distances, which means exposure to fossil fuels and other contaminants, decreased nutritional value, and a negative impact on the environment. 

Frozen berries are a better choice, especially if they come from Canada.  

The black beans were drained from a can, and cooked in a cast iron frying pan with about two tablespoons of lime juice and two tablespoons of olive oil, until the liquid was reduced. 

The rutabaga was a leftover from a holiday dinner.  I peeled and roughly chopped the rutabaga, boiled it until it was soft, drained it, and then mashed it with a bit of vegan margarine.  I warmed it in the same frying pan as the beans, once they were done, allowing it to brown slightly.

All in all, this was a delicious breakfast that took less than ten minutes to make, and a welcome break from holiday overindulgence.