1 large red onion, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
3 stalks celery, chopped
2 sprigs rosemary
1 cup beef broth
2 cups Newcastle brown ale or other
4 medium carrots, chopped
4 medium potatoes, chopped
1 teaspoon dried parsley
salt and pepper

1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter
4 sprigs thyme, stems removed
salt and pepper
water

1. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat and add the onion. Cover and allow to caramelize until fully browned, about half an hour.
2. Heat oil in a large pot and add celery and rosemary. Dust with flour.
3. Combine carrots and potatoes with celery and rosemary and add beef broth and ale to cover.
4. Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cover while making dumplings.
5. Combine flour, butter, salt, pepper and thyme in a bowl until you have a crumblike consistency.
6. Gradually add cold water, tablespoon by tablespoon, until you have a dough.
7. Form the dough into golf ball sized rounds and add this to the pot.
8. Continue to stew for about 2 hours until dumplings are completely cooked.
9. Season stew with dried parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

Makes 6 servings

16 ounces sirloin steak
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, sliced
6 button mushrooms, sliced
12 ounces Newcastle dark ale or other
1/2 cup low-fat sour cream
salt and pepper

1. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat and add the onion. Cover and allow to caramelize until fully browned, about half an hour.
2. Remove the onions from the skillet and add the vegetable oil. Fry steak in batches until browned on all sides.
3. Readd the onions, add the mushrooms and pour ale over to cover.
4. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until beef is softened and can easily be torn apart with a fork, about an hour.
5. Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper to taste and stir in sour cream to serve.

Makes 4 servings

I actually had the night off, so I actually got to watch the hockey game, and what better a game to get to watch than game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals? Unfortunately, it was going bad from the start and in the end the Oilers lost to the Hurricanes. Over the course of 3 periods many beers were drunk and I figured, since I was drinking them anyway, I might as well be cooking with beer as well. What better way to wash down the bitter taste of your own tears!

I've never really done any cooking with beer because I've been afraid the flavor will completely overpower whatever I'm cooking. I heard that it's a great tenderizer, so I cooked up a bunch of beef in beer that I like to call Newcastle Beef. Newcastle is my favorite brown ale, so it seemed like a great one to combine with cooking. However, I'm not sure that the meat ended up any more tender than if it were just stewed in plain old tap water and I'm also not sure that it was really any tastier than ordinary stewed beef. At least it didn't taste like hops.

I really didn't think this through too well as I essentially made 2 stews, the second of which was Newcastle Stew with Dumplings. The good thing about slow cooking dumplings in a stew is that you're going to be stewing for an awfully long time anyway and the flour from them helps to make a thickened gravy. I left the pot on the stove for at least another hour after snapping that photo and the potatoes had lost much of their shape and everything had really came together. This is essentially how I like stew, as a fallen apart bowl of root vegetables, but I can understand why someone would want the vegetables to retain some of their shape. It was fine alone, but combined with the beef was much better.