Marble Potato Stew

Today was my first day back off the bike in almost two weeks. I've been travelling through the Western states to get to races in that time, and have not had a full day at home when I could relax and take it easy. I was thus very eager to take advantage of today to cook something that I've been concocting in my head ever since a fateful Whole Foods visit in Walnut Creek, California.

It's no secret that I like to shop at Whole Foods. One of the reasons for this is that I always find at least one thing that really captures my attention and sparks my imagination. This time, it was marble potatoes. I was browsing the produce section when I saw a bag of these small, colorful potatoes. I instantly started brainstorming. I knew I wouldn't have a chance to cook for another dozen days so I waited until my departure to pick them up and dropped them off at home before heading to Arizona (I had one day to get back to SLC from California before heading to Arizona).

Anticipation built as I got more and more excited to cook with these wonderful little taters. So, first thing this morning, I stepped out into the snow, got the grill going and started cooking away!

I knew that I wanted to make some sort of stew, but I didn't want it to be boring. I therefore decided on which vegetables I was gonna use (red bell peppers, tomatoes, yellow onion, and garlic), and chose to cook them up a la "Méchoui" as my grandma loves to do. This consists of grilling the vegetables and letting them char a bit to add a nice smoky flavor. I put the potatoes on the grill at the same time. I brushed everything with olive oil and sprinkled some salt from Martigues for extra flavor. Once all that had cooked nicely and the potatoes had softened, I grilled up some chopped steak just until grill-marks appeared. Note: I am not a big fan of red meat but I am a believer that eating it occasionally is good for you, and I thought it'd go great with this dish. Pork or lamb would also probably work well.

From here, I put everything in my trusty slow cooker, and added fresh thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, some tomato sauce, and low-sodium organic beef broth. I set the cooker on high, and let it cook for about 8 hours, stirring occasionally.

 The result was everything I had hoped it would be. Using the grill to pre-cook the vegetables added a huge amount of flavor. The slow cooker allowed the ingredients to cook through at their own pace, leaving the meat and potatoes tender and creating a very nice broth. This recipe is actually pretty healthy. I used very little olive oil and had a pretty lean cut of beef so there was very little fat. One could go a step farther and use turkey or chicken breast to keep this extra lean, and use just a few less potatoes to lower the amount of calories a little.

As good as this stew is straight out of the cooker, this sort of stew is always better the next day, so making it a day ahead if very recommended. That is, if you can resist!