Guinness Stew

Popular to contrary belief, you CAN make a great Guinness stew without meat. I recently learned, Guinness does have a fish by-product in it (isinglass), and I made my stew with beef flavoured bouillon. Feel free to use a different stout beer and use veggie broth if you are vegetarian, and replace the butter with regular oil if you are vegan. This stew is WAY better the next day, so plan on making it, let it sit until it gets cold, and then heating it back up. Enjoy!

1 small eggplant
2 T. butter
8 oz. cake of Tempeh
2 T. flour
6 cloves garlic, pressed
2 cups guinness
1 cup red wine
5 cups combination of tempeh water, beef or vegetable broth
1 T. brown sugar
2 T. tomato paste
1 T. dried thyme
1 T. worcestershire sauce
1 T. horseradish
2 bay leaves
1 large onion, chopped
3 ribs celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped (1 cup)*
2 small turnips, chopped (1 cup)*
2 large russet potatoes, cut into 1/2" pieces*
3 T. olive oil
1/4-1/2 t. rosemary
1/4-1/2 t. marjoram
*can be peeled, if you prefer

1) Peel eggplant and cut into 1" rounds. Salt both sides and set on cookie rack or in strainer to sweat for 30 minutes. Wipe dry and cut into 1" cubes.
2) Steam tempeh over 1 c. water for just a couple minutes: enough to get it warm and sticky and to flavour the water. Reserve the water.
3) Melt butter in large pot over medium heat. As butter melts, cut the tempeh into 1/2" cubes and roll in flour, coating all sides well. Drop coated tempeh into melted butter and saute until all sides are lightly browned. Add garlic and saute another 30 seconds.
4) Add guinness, red wine, tempeh water/broth, brown sugar, tomato paste, thyme, worcestershire sauce, horseradish and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then lower heat, cover and let simmer.
5) While stew base simmers, prepare the onion, celergy, carrots, turnips and potatoes. (take your time, because the stew base has to simmer for a while!)
6) Heat oil in medium sized pot, add veggies and saute' until golden, about 20 minutes. Add the rosemary and marjoream toward the end of the saute.
7) Add sauteed veggies to stew base and simmer, uncovered about 40 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste, remembering there was residual salt on the eggplant. Let cool, then reheat or refrigerate until ready to reheat.

This recipe serves about 10. I find it tastes best when served with biscuits or sweet cornbread. I like to dip chunks in my stew and then scoop them out with my spoon...yummm.