Beef Shank Stew with Parmesan Dumplings and Ice Cream Pie

My feet won't stop swelling! Every morning they just get bigger and bigger, my fingers hurt to bend! I'm so done with this!!

We finished our fire place.

I woke up wanting to change my chalkboard finally to a Halloween theme.

Here is my final picture.

For dinner I made a Beef Shank Stew with Parmesan Dumplings, oh man does that sound good or what?

First I took the beef shanks and heavily salt and peppered them.

Added a little dusting of flour to make sure it would thicken a bit, not not too much cause I will be putting dumplings in this so that will help thicken it up enough.

I put my Dutch oven to medium high and added a small amount of canola oil. Added the first 2 beef shanks, you want to give enough room to get that delicious brown crust on each side so do this in batches. 

While browning the shanks, I diced up the veggies. 1 large onion, 3 small carrots, 1 large celery stalk, sliced 3 garlic cloves, and a package of whole Bella mushrooms quartered.

After each shank was browned I moved them to a plate.

First I put the onions, carrots, and celery in and fried them till they became soft. 

Then I added the garlic and fried that for about a minute.

I moved the veggies aside and made a spot in the middle to add a tablespoon of tomato paste and stirred to fry it in the oil then mixed it with the veggies.

Then I added a little under a cup if red wine to the pot.

Next I added 2 tbs of soy sauce.

Then a can of San Marzano tomatoes with Basil.

I didn't add this whole tablespoon of sugar, only 2/3rds of it.

I stirred that together, then put the meat back to the pan, don't forget all the juices that collected on the plate it was resting on.

I put in 5 sprigs of my home grown thyme, and 2 bay leaves.

Then I poured in beef stock till it came up to the top edge of the meat. Try and push the meat under the broth so it won't dry out.

I brought it to a boil, put the lid on and turned it down to low and simmered for 2 hours. Then put in the Mushrooms.

I let those cook for 10 mins.

For the dumplings I cubed a stick of butter.

And added that to the food processor.

Added 2 cups of flour.

1 tsp of baking powder.

Then half a cup of Parmesan.

Pulsed that till it looked like sand and slowly added 3/4 cup of milk till it formed a ball. Took the ball out and made a bunch of balls smaller than a golf ball.

Added the dumplings to the stew and covered with the lid for 15 mins.

To plate I used my new bowls I got from IKEA and pulled out some meat even though it was falling apart, spooned the broth and veggies over the meat, and scooped out 3 dumplings. Then topped with thyme sprigs and Parmesan shavings.

To make dessert I used a pioneer woman recipe that I saw this weekend but changed it up a bit with an Oreo crust instead of graham cracker.

First I took 25 whole Oreo cookies, I wanted the orange Halloween ones but my stupid grocery store did not have them and I didn't feel like running around on my poor swollen feet to find them. Plus it prob wouldn't have even been noticeable since they were crushed together. Anyways, I crushed the 25 Oreos in a bag until as fine as possible, you can use a food processor for more fine crumbs but I'm using it for my dumplings and didn't want to clean it out.

 Next I melted 4 tbs of butter and added it into the bag of crushed Oreos.

Poured them into a glass pie dish and put in the oven at 350° for 5 mins to set.

Next I took 2 pints of vanilla ice cream and left it out to soften.

I asked James what candy bars he wanted in the ice cream and he picked butterfinger and Reese's cups. 

Not my pick but I love him so I'll deal with it. I would have done Heath and BabyRuth! Yumm! Ok back to his pick. I chopped them up into small pieces.

Then mixed them into the softened vanilla ice cream.

Then poured that into the cooled Oreo crust.

Then took a small amount of pecans, chopped them up.

And sprinkled on top. 

Covered tightly with foil and put it in the freezer till dessert time, but at least an hour. Then I took a milk chocolate hot fudge sauce, warmed it in the microwave and poured on top of each piece. Can you say yummy?!