Favorite Stews Edition: Beef Heart Bourguignon

Over the course of the last few weeks, I've had the pleasure of sharing some of my learnings from the Institute for Integral Nutrition with a few of my friends looking to get healthy. One common theme is the struggle to know what to eat. Everyone echos the same sentiment: I grew up eating Lucky Charms and Low Fat Milk for breakfast and now I have no idea what I should be eating! Similarly, dinner has often been takeout of either Chinese food or pizza as parents (mostly moms) struggled to balance work and cooking for the family. I grew up in such a household myself. We often had Chinese take out growing up in Brooklyn. When we moved to San Francisco, my mother fell in love with the San Francisco cuisine and would often bring home Banh Mi sandwiches and Chinese Buns for dinner. But after a while, she learned how to make her own Chow Fun and Lo Mein and soon we were enjoying homemade Chinese take out, which my mom would make to last us a week.

The idea of cooking for the family or preparing a meal for yourself for the week is much more daunting than the task itself. If you have the right tools, you can prepare a meal in 15minutes in the morning, set it to cook on low for several hours, and by lunchtime or dinnertime have a delicious meal available to enjoy. The key is to find several recipes that are manageable and fun. I am a big fan of stews and one-pot meals. I truly feel that it's an easy way to ensure you cook once and eat several times. One of my favorite stews is Beef Bourguignon, but unfortunately it usually calls for milk, flour or tomatoes. So, I've developed a recipe that uses none of those ingredients and, to make it fun, I'm using beef hearts instead of stew meat. You can easily substitute beef stew meat instead.

Beef Heart Bourguignon
Ingredients
1.5-2lb Beef Heart (or stew meat)
5 small onions 
3 large carrots
1 medium sized celery root
1.5 cups sprouted lentils
4 bay leaves
4 springs of thyme
1 tbsp Himalayan Salt
1 bottle of dry wine (I use the $1.99 Cabernet Savingnon from Whole Foods)
1 tbsp ghee/coconut oil/olive oil

Process:
1.Cube beef heart and clean outer skin of onions

2. Heat ghee/oil in dutch oven or large enameled pot

3. Chop carrots and cube celery root

4. Add whole onions into pan and let brown

5. Add heart, salt, bay leaves, thyme and saute for 10 minutes

6. Add carrots and celery root

7. Add wine

8. Bring to boil, let boil for 20 mins and lentils

9. Turn down heat to low and simmer for 3-4 hours

10. Serve & Enjoy!