Full Disclosure:  Beef Stew challenges me.  On the surface, it’s perfect comfort food with much in its favor, but I usually only like it, never love it.  One thing I’ve figured out is that I don’t like stewed vegetables, especially potatoes, so I tend to favor recipes with just meat and gravy.  This week’s selection for Cook the Book Fridays from David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen, Belgian beef stew with beer and spice bread (aka Carbonade Flamande), met these criteria, so I was excited to try something new.

To start, chunks of beef chuck are browned.  Next, diced onions and bacon lardons are sautéed.  The pot is deglazed with some water before adding a bottle of beer.  I tried to find a European-style amber, but the only amber at the store was Dos Equis so that’s what I used.  Finally, all the ingredients along with thyme, bay leaves, and cloves spent some time simmering.

Now it’s time for the secret ingredient: pain d’épices.  What’s pain d’épices, you ask?  It’s a honeyed spice loaf, not too sweet and fragrant with a variety of warm spices: anise, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg and cloves.  The scent reminded me of my favorite holiday cookies, Basler Läckerli.

It seems unconventional, but this stew is thickened with slices of pain d’épices lightly spread with Dijon mustard.  The slices are laid on top while it stews for a few more hours.  Periodic stirring encourages the bread to dissolve into the pot, transforming the thin beery broth into a thick flavorful gravy.

I served the stew over a bed of mashed potatoes.  The stew had the simple style I prefer with an unusual and enticing aroma and taste.  While I enjoyed this more than many other versions of beef stew, I still just liked-not-loved it.

Tricky to photograph — it was more appealing in person

I enjoyed the leftover spice bread more.  I brought it to my sister’s.  It was a bit dry, but improved when we toasted it for breakfast.

Meanwhile, I’ve become obsessed with last time’s dukkah.  I made the dukkah-roasted cauliflower 3 times in the past two weeks. I also gave broccoli the same treatment.  Equally delicious.  And I used dukkah to coat fish fillets when I made Dorie Greenspan’s almond flounder meunière (or should I call it dukkah flounder meunière?)  I’m going to have to make another batch.

We just returned from a long weekend in Florida for a family celebration.  Here’s my favorite nature shot from the trip.  We saw this 15-to-20 foot alligator floating in the water beside the fishing pavilion when we took a walk at Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.

And closer to home, despite a snowstorm predicted for the weekend, spring is in the air.  This morning I caught half a dozen turtles sunning themselves on a log during my late-morning walk with Bella.  They made me smile.

And this evening, we spied a beautiful full rainbow in the backyard!

If you want to know how my friends enjoyed their stew, check out their links here.  Due to copyright considerations, I don’t publish the recipes here.  You can find the stew on page 198 and the pain d’épices on page 293 of David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen.  Or feel free to drop me a line and I’ll share with you.