Nothing like a hearty stew to fill and warm you up! This tasty meal is also gluten-free!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups dried white tepary beans, rinsed & picked through
• 10 cups water
• 1 cup diced carrot
• 1/2 diced white onion
• 1 1/2 tsp salt or to taste
• 3/4 tsp black pepper or to taste
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp dried thyme leaves
• 1 pound beef stew meat, cut into cubes
• 1/2 cup brown rice flour
• 1/2 cup corn flour
• olive oil for cooking meat

Directions:

In a crock pot dump in the tepary beans, water, salt, pepper, bay leaves, thyme leaves, carrot and onion. Begin cooking the beans and liquid on low heat.

In a medium sized bowl with a lid, pour in the rice and corn flour then dump in the chopped stew meat. Put the lid on the bowl and shake vigorously until all the meat is coated in flour.

In a large preheated skillet, pour in enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Place the cubes of stew meat into the skillet and brown. Keep turning the pieces until all the sides have been browned. Drain the cooked meat on a paper towel covered plate.

Scrape the roux from the pan and place it into the crock pot. Then dump in the browned pieces of stew meat. Stir to blend the roux and meat into the stew liquid.

Cook the stew until the beans are tender. Cooking times will vary based on your crock pot.

Recipe from: http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/

This recipe is great if you don’t need a lot of soup or if you are serving it as a side dish.  It’s proportioned out for a 2.5 quart crock pot.  If you have a larger crock pot and would like to make more, simply double the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb dried tepary beans (soaked over-night)
• 1 small potato (small-diced)
• 1 carrot (diced)
• 1 onion (diced)
• 1 stalk celery (diced)
• 1 (14 ounce) can tomato sauce (use a small can)
• 2 tablespoons vegan margarine
• 3 slices turkey bacon (cubed)
• 1 small dried chili (optional)
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper (to taste)

Directions:

Saute the turkey bacon until it’s soft but not crisp. Remove from pan and set aside. You will have very little grease from the bacon so add the vegan margarine to the fry pan and saute the carrot, onion and celery until tender crisp. Drain the Tepary Beans and rinse them well. Put the sauted turkey bacon, vegetables, beans, pepper and bay leaf into your crock pot. Fill to within 2 inches of the top with water. I considered using soup broth but remembered that tomato will inhibit the beans cooking, so water is a better choice here. Remembering this will bubble up so you don’t want to over fill the crock. It should take about 6-8 hours to cook the beans to the soft stage. If think you will need to cook the beans longer add your water at the beginning of the cooking cycle. After 6 or 7 hours check the beans for softness. If you are happy with them then add the tomato sauce and cook for 30 minutes more. Don’t add the tomato sauce before hand as it will stop the beans from getting soft.

Recipe from: http://www.recipezaar.com

photo credit: scottfeldstein