February's recipes

For February, I made No Peek Stew for my cookbook recipe, Cuban-Style Yucca for my something new recipe, and Lemon Mug Cake for my Pinterest recipe.

I used the same cookbook (gluten-free deliciously by jennifer cinquepalmi).  I used the dutch oven my mother and her husband gave me for Christmas.  This was a new thing for me too, I don't remember ever cooking with a dutch oven before even though I had one years ago.

My beautiful red dutch oven

Finished No Peek Stew

No-Peek Stew

4 lbs lean stew meat
6 large carrots, chopped into bite-size pieces
1 - 2 onions, sliced
1 1/2 cups celery, chopped
9 medium red potatoes, cut into large chunks
2 (28-oz) cans diced tomatoes
Use the empty can to add 1/2 can water
3 Tbsp dry tapioca granules (to thicken)
3 Tbsp granulated sugar
5 tsp salt
4 tsp pepper

Combine all ingredients in a large dutch oven, stirring well.  Cover and bake 250 degrees for 5 - 6 hours; no need to stir or peek!

Serves 10.

I used only 2 lbs stew meat - I generally try to have less meat and more veggies.  I used regular potatoes.  This was very good, but way too much pepper.  I love black pepper, but next time will only use 2 teaspoons or maybe even 1.  I also seared my stew meat before adding the other ingredients.  That was the reason I asked for a dutch oven, and I've heard it seals in the juices.  I do know the meat was very tender in my stew!

I Googled yucca recipes and the first result sounded good - so that's what I made.  Here's the link to the recipe:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cuban-style-yucca/

Buying yucca at Harvey's

This month I had no idea what I wanted to do for my new thing, other than maybe something in the produce section.  So, I hunted around the produce aisle while in Harvey's.  I saw the Yucca and Googled recipes from my iphone.  It said it was like potatoes and had a recipe with olive oil and garlic - so I decided to give it a try. My daughter figured it was named yucca for a reason.  She did not want me to buy "yuck - uh" and make her eat it!  It is coated in a very heavy layer of wax.  I had no idea how to decide which yucca to buy, so I just found what would weigh the 2 pounds called for.  I followed the recipe basically except that I cut them crosswise (in circles).  The picture didn't look like it was in sticks, so I wasn't sure what they meant by lengthwise.  I think it would have been better diced.  I was concerned about the heavy wax, so I tried to peel it with a paring knife, but that didn't work well.  I switched to my regular potato peeler and that worked very well.  The recipe didn't really give a description of how to cut it up and peel it.

Finished Cuban-Style Yucca

I wasn't sure what would be the good and bad parts.  I did cut out some brown places that looked sort of like peel on the inside.  I later read elsewhere that you should cut out the woody parts.  The yucca had a fibrous texture similar to fresh ginger.  both of them had a very white streak through them that should have been cut out.  When I cooked them the creamy, almost beige parts were the softer, better tasting parts.  The bright white spots did get tender enough to eat but were not very good. I didn't have lemon juice, so I used lime.  This recipe called for fresh garlic, so I was able to use another Christmas present kitchen tool, this one given to me by sister and her etceteras - it's a silicone tube you place the garlic in and roll it around to remove the peel.  It worked really well.  The yucca was pretty good, but needed more salt - so we added that at the table.

My Pinterest recipe can be found here:  http://pinterest.com/pin/210824826278646897/.

It is gluten-free, but could be made with regular flour, I'm sure.  It called for almond flour, but I used my usual flour mix because I didn't have almond flour.  So my version was not low carb.  I got my flour mix recipe from a chicken and dumpling recipe I found on Pinterest a while ago.  I mix 2 1/2 cups of rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch, and 1/3 cup tapioca starch.  I used stevia instead of the sugar alcohol used in the recipe.  I put in 3 of the little spoons that come in my stevia.  It is pure stevia  extract, so I am able to sweeten a gallon of tea 

with just 1/2 teaspoon of stevia.  Again, not having lemons or lemon juice, I used lime.  The cake was very good.  I didn't have whipped cream, which it did need.  I had some canned cream cheese frosting, so I added a spoonful of that to the top of each and let it melt in.  I have been quite taken with the brownie in a mug recipe I found on Pinterest, so this was another variety to add to that one.  This one is definitely a keeper!