Beef Soup Bento minus the dumplings

Beef soup minus the dumplings bento with pistachios, orange and pear wedges and one of Keira's halloween goodies.

 Hello everyone, hope you all enjoyed your weekend. Can it be over already? Have you turned back your clocks? I wasn't aware that this was the weekend to do that so I woke up quite early this morning. It's a wonder I made it through the day I felt so groggy.

Playing outside and breaking in her new suit!

Hanging around..

It's been raining a lot lately but this weekend, we were blessed with sunshine! It wasn't warm but at least there was sun. Keira decided to try out her new salopettes (her new ski/winter pants) which I was able to buy at the Orage warehouse sale for... 25 bucks! And it matches her coat.. woot! To be honest, I wasn't sure the pants would fit her. It's a size 5t. It looked big. It fits her from the inseam and legs but I now realize that Keira has a short torso. So, the legs fit just perfectly, the straps are loose and hanging.. ah well. I don't want to cut the straps as next year, these salopettes will go to the donation bin and I want the next kid wearing it to have the option of adjustable straps.

Last week, I saw a lot of soups being made for lunches and suppers and I thought what better way to enjoy cold weather but to make some soup myself. I have my trusty Jamie Oliver cookbook and I like to make his Beef Stew with ale and dumplings. Minus the dumplings. lol. Call it what you want in different cultures: dumplings, gnocchi, shujebi.. I can't make myself swallow little slippery chunks of flour.

Les Brasseurs de Montréal Écossaise beer, the last of my garden tomatoes and butternut squash..

The recipe itself is quite simple: beef cubes coated with flour then added to sizzling oil in big pot, once all sides are nice and golden crisp add garlic and onions.. I don't usually add the pancetta as per Jamie's recipe. He's obsessed with pancetta! (Pancetta is everywhere in this cookbook!) Then I added my green stuffs and my stock (I also added a bit of beef bouillon) and 1 bottle of beer. I usually like to add a rousse or something with a  sweet twist to it but this time, I tried Les Brasseurs de Montréal's Black Watch Écossaise, which is a deep brown colour with a caramelised flavour. I'm not a beer connoisseur by the way. But this beer added a deep flavour to the soup. Then I added butternut squash, rutabega, grelots (small potatoes), carrots and the last of my garden tomatoes. I waited til the end to decide if I wanted to thicken the soup as a stew or keep it as is with broth.

Since there is so much flavour and I added chicken stock to the soup, there's really no need to add salt. And voila! My bento lunches for this week! All I need to add is crusty bread with butter..

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