Topic: Recipes
It all started with a phone call from my friend and fellow flutist, Mary.
I was browning some ground beef, thinking about making some crockpot beef recipe and waiting for inspiration, when the phone rang.
"Karen, have you ever heard of making pot roast with rosemary?" Mary asked, explaining her indoor rosemary plant was quite healthy and she'd defrosted some beef, and she was in a cooking frenzy.
"Well, I usually think of rosemary with chicken...or in my rosemary pound cake or rosemary shortbread," I said, walking through the door from the kitchen to the "man treehouse" where my own indoor rosemary plant resides.
And, before I knew it, I'd snipped a couple of sprigs of rosemary and inhaled deeply from the fragrant cut edge.
"I'm sure you can use rosemary in your pot roast recipe,because you've just inspired me to use it in my beef stew!"
And, below you have the recipe for Herbed Beef Stew over Polenta
because one thing I do know about beef and rosemary is that it reminded me of Tuscan inspired roast beef--so, it just had to be served over polenta.
Herbed Ground Beef Stew
(in the crockpot, 6 hearty servings over Polenta)
Prep crockpot with spray oil.
Brown 2 lbs. of ground beef , add to crockpot.
Add the following fresh, chopped vegetables:
2 potatoes
2 large carrots
2 stalks of celery
Then add and stir in :
1 can of diced tomatoes with the juice
1-8 oz can of tomato sauce
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
Then add:
1 tsp.dried thyme
2 tsp. dried parsley
½ tsp onion powder, ½ tsp. Garlic powder
1 tsp salt
Place 2 freshly cut Rosemary sprigs on top.
Cook on “low” 8 hours. Remove Rosemary before serving.
Serve this fragrant, healthy stew aside a dollop of Polenta.
I used Giada De Laurentis' recipe for “Basic Polenta” for 6 servings:
6 cups of water, bring to boil in a heavy saucepan. Add 2 tsp. Salt and 1&3/4 cups yellow cornmeal. Reduce heat to low and cook, while stirring until thick and tender.
Remove from heat and stir in 3 Tbsp butter, cut into pieces.
