Cabbage & Green Bean Stew

I got a St. Patrick’s day card from my sister the other day.  She is the absolute queen of card sending.

It was a little square card with a bright, happy mound of green as can be shamrocks being cupped in a child’s hands.

Besides conjuring up the smell of dew and fresh grass, it made me think of corned beef and cabbage.

This though stuck in my head for a couple days before I absolutely could not help myself and off to the store I went to buy ingredients!

For some reason I chose to go with beef instead of corned beef, but you could use either.

In fact, cooking is about having fun, so you could use pork or chicken or lamb for that matter.  It’s just really cabbage stew with some meat in it.

You could even make it without meat and use beans instead and maybe some wild rice.  That sounds pretty good actually.

In any case, cabbage is a great food and it’s a shame it gets shunned except for St. Paddy’s day.  It is great for helping the detoxification system in your liver.  Since it is a brassica vegetable, it has lot’s of IC3, or indole-3-carbinol, to help your body process estrogen and other toxins properly.  It also has a lot of glutamine, an amino acid which your digestive system uses as fuel to keep its lining strong.

You could also make this with bok choy, which is also cabbage. You would just add it later in the cooking, as it cooks pretty quickly.

I like to cook by color because color ensures different nutrients without having to overdo the nutrient-think.  So green beans is the green and some tomatoes are some red - lots of lycopene.  A touch of molasses actually has a super abundance of iron, manganese, calcium, magnesium, potassium, selenium and B6.  Onion and garlic have lots of sulfur to help build glutathione.  Carrots and a little potato would be great additions.  Leeks would be good too.  You can make it with or without a tomato base.

Check out my friend George Mateljan’s World’s Healthiest Foods for the hands down best food fact resource.

Grass fed meats have the omega-3 fatty acids they are supposed to have, instead of the omega-6 skew with grain fed, without any hormones or antibiotics either. I like to use only enough to have the meat be an addition to the dish rather that the main thing.

Here is my recipe.  Play with it as you wish.  I simmered it on the stovetop, but you could slow roast it as well.  Freeze what you don’t eat right away.  It will make some day in the future much easier.

Cabbage & Green Bean Stew:

1 can diced organic tomatoes
2 tbsp organic black strap molasses
1 extra large red onion, diced into medium pieces
3 cloves garlic, crushed
12 medium sized mushrooms of your choice
1 1/2 to 2 lbs grass fed beef shoulder round
ground pepper
1 1/2 lbs green beans (fresh or fresh frozen and thawed)
1 large or extra large head of cabbage cut into 8 wedges, then about 3 inch pieces. You can make the pieces smaller if you wish, leave the core in, or cut it out, it’s up to you.
bay leaf or cloves or whatever else you might want for spice

Put the piece of meat, diced tomatoes, onions, garlic, molasses, pepper and whatever other spices or herbs you want to add in a large deep roasting or cooking pot.  Add some water (1-2 cups depending on how much broth you want.  I used about 1 cup), stir it around and start simmering on low heat (this was a 2 on my electric stovetop).  It should not be hot enough to bubble.  Every once in a while, turn the meat over so it sits in the juice.  Simmer for about 3 hours.  Until the meat appears done and getting soft.  I like to break the meat apart at this point, but you can leave it as one piece.  Either way is good.

Add the green beans and cabbage.  Simmer another 1 hour or until cabbage is just soft.  The time will depend on how hot you are cooking at.  I like my vegetables pretty firm and not overcooked.

That’s it.  Serve in some bowls with a little juice.

Try your own variation and let us know how it goes!

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