Fall

4 Tablespoons extra-virgine olive oil
6 cloves of garlic, minced or grated finely
1 Tablespoon minced fresh sage
2 Teaspoons minced fresh rosemary
salt and pepper
4 pounds pork rib roast (don’t use the center cut – it will have no flavor and be dry)

12 ounces or 1 pound of dry flageolet beans, cooked, or small white beans, canned
1 large onion, or 2 medium
butter
3 large Yukon gold potatoes
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
pepper

For the meat, mix the first 4 ingredients and the salt and pepper, and rub them on the pork (you can use a large roasting chicken if you prefer). Put the meat in a roasting pan.

If you are cooking pork, cover the pan with foil and roast for 2 hours at 375 degrees. If using a chicken, do not cover with foil but use a vertical chicken roaster (sort of like a chicken chimney).

Fry the chopped onion in 2 Tablespoons of butter until golden, then add the drained beans, and the potatoes. Set aside.

After one hour of cooking the roast, remove the foil (if you are doing the pork) and place the cooked beans and the potatoes (peeled and cut in half), the bay leaf and parsley in the bottom of a roaster under the pork or chicken. Add 1-2 cups of chicken stock or water to the pan. Give the beans and potatoes a good stir, then roast for another 1-2 hours, until everything is cooked to your liking. Check from time to time and give the beans a stir. Add more stock if they are getting too dry. Salt the beans and potatoes to taste (it is best to salt beans after cooking so they don’t become tough).

Remove the roast to a platter to slice it, and dish up the beans and potatoes into a bowl.

The drippings from the pork or chicken will season the beans and potatoes, relieving you of the disheartening task of making GF gravy. The beans will be so delicious you will wonder why you ever used to make gravy to begin with.

Notes: If you are not familiar with the fabulous flageolet beans of France, please see if you can obtain some. They can be pressure-cooked for 25 minutes and used in this recipe. If you don’t use a pressure cooker, then soak them over night and cook as you would cook dry kidney beans. If you don’t have access to flageolet beans, then use canned small white beans but it won’t be as delicious.

It is best to grow your own fresh herbs for fall and winter cooking, but if you don’t have fresh sage and rosemary then use half as much dry herbs. So, if the recipe calls for 1 Tablespoon of fresh sage, use 1 and a half teaspoons of dry sage.

Beef Stew – Gluten free recipe!

2 pounds of beef chuck
olive oil
2 large Spanish onions
1-2 cloves of garlic
fresh oregano leaves and fresh rosemary
salt and pepper
Chianti
Black coffee
water

While your friends are adding flour to thicken the gravy, you will be reading a book with your feet up, waiting for a really tasty beef stew that contains no thickeners. To make a good stew, make sure to use high-quality stewing beef – the kind that will get tender with cooking! Beef chuck is the right cut. The meat must have some fat and connective tissue if you want a tender stew.

This recipe may sound unlikely, – braising beef in red wine and coffee – but it is just delicious. Serve it with braised potatoes and garlic.

First, brown 2 pounds of beef chuck, cut in large cubes – 1.5 inches – in 2 Tablespoons of good olive oil. Remove the browned beef cubes to a stew pot.

Next, chop up 2 large onions and brown them in the drippings in the pan – about 8 miutes on medium heat. Then add 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced, and 1/2 tablespoon EACH of minced fresh oregano leaves and fresh rosemary, and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and frshly ground pepper. Deglaze the pan with 1 cup of Chianti (Italian red wine) , 1 cup of black coffee and 1 cup of water. Pour all of this mixture in with the beef. Put a top on the stew pot and cook over low heat for about 2 hours – you will want to be checking to make sure the stew does not burn, and adding extra water as needed. Keep checking from time to time.

When the meat is tender, (check by sticking a fork in it), take the top off and reduce the sauce to the amount you like – some people like a lot of sauce, some people don’t.

This recipe is based on one from Tastes of the Pacific Northwest by Fred Brack and Tina Bell, 1988.