Low-carb, Grain-free, Dairy-free, Paleo

The weather has finally turned chilly enough to be to soup-weather! Hip-hip-hooray! My first plan for dinner was to make some cream of broccoli soup, but I was out of chicken bouillon and my chicken stock ingredients were all frozen. What I did have was beef bouillon, so I thought I’d try to make a beef-based creamy soup, instead. I wasn’t sure how a beef flavored cream soup would turn out, but I tried it anyway and it turned out great.

I used cubed round steak for the meat. If you’re unfamiliar with cube steak, it’s a less expensive cut of meat that’s put through a special tenderizing, or cubing, machine by the butcher. The process turns a tough, yet flavorful, cut of meat into a easy to use steak for things like stews or chicken-fried steak. So when you use it for chowder, you get tender meat and lots of steak flavor.

Ingredients:

2 lb cube steak

1 1/2 large heads of cauliflower or 2 smaller heads

1/2 C. cashew butter

1 qt unsweetened cashew milk

5-6 cloves of roasted garlic

1 lb. sliced mushrooms

1/2 large onion, thinly sliced

2 cans french cut green beans

2 T. Beef Better than Bouillon 

salt

white pepper

Set the broiler in your oven to high and give it a few minutes to heat up.

Break up the cauliflower into a large pot and add enough water to just barely cover the cauliflower. Simmer the cauliflower on medium to medium-high heat for about 20 minutes, or until it’s all soft.

While the cauliflower is cooking, put the cube steak on a broiler pan and liberally salt and pepper the steak on both sides. Put the broiler pan directly under the broiler, on the highest rack in the oven. Broil the steak for 6 minutes per side, then remove it from the oven.

If the timing works out, the cauliflower should be ready about the time the steak is cooked. With a slotted spoon, remove about 1/3 of the cooked cauliflower and set aside for now.

Set the steak aside on a plate and pour all the juices and residue from broiling into the pot with the water and the rest of the cauliflower. Put in everything you can scrape off the broiler pan.

To the cauliflower, water, and steak juices, add the cashew butter, cashew milk, and roasted garlic. Use an immersion/stick blender to puree everything together until it is very smooth. You should end up with a thick, rich, and creamy base.

Set the soup pot aside and saute the mushrooms and onions in a separate pan. Cook them until the onions are completely translucent. If you’re patient enough, you can saute them until the onions get a little caramelized.

Once cooked, add the mushrooms and onions to the soup. Also add the green beans at this time. If you want to add the equivalent amount of frozen beans instead of canned, you go do your thing. I don’t care for frozen, but some people don’t care for canned. Use what you like.

By this time the steak should have cooled enough to handle. Cut the cooked steak into small bite-sized pieces (I used kitchen scissors), and add it to the soup.

Take the cooked cauliflower that you set aside earlier, and break up any large pieces into small bite-sized pieces, then add the cauliflower back into the soup. This step takes the place of potatoes in the chowder.

The last step is to add salt, pepper, and beef bouillon. Add salt and white pepper to taste. How much you use will be based on your personal preference. For the bouillon I used 2 tablespoons, but I recommend adding one tablespoon at first and then adding more as needed. The amount you use will depend on how much flavor you got out of the drippings from the broiler pan, which will vary from steak to steak.

The finished result is very tasty, savory, and comforting.