St. Patrick's Irish Beef Dinner — The Soup Already Waiting When the Hard Week Arrives

One week to the sixth anniversary. I am in a different place than I was a week before the fifth — calmer, more matter-of-fact, the way you are with a thing you have done enough times to know it. The grief is not smaller. It is just more familiar now, which is not the same as smaller. I know its weight. I have learned my posture under it.

Destiny is coming Saturday to spend the weekend, as she does every year for this week. She and Travis are well — she is expanding her private practice, taking on one more client and considering adding a group program. She sounds the way people sound when they are fully in their work: tired in the purposeful way, alert, using herself well. I am proud of her in the way I am proud of CJ: not because they have achieved what I planned for them, which I did not plan, but because they have found their own shape in the world and it is genuinely their shape and it fits.

I made a batch of soup Tuesday evening, not for Bernice's Table but for the kitchen — a beef and vegetable soup with the soup bone from the butcher and root vegetables from the pantry. I made too much on purpose. Destiny will eat it when she arrives Saturday. There will be enough for Sunday. The soup is already here, ready for what the weekend requires. That is how I prepare for the hard things: by making sure the good things are already in place before the hard part arrives.

The soup I made Tuesday is this one — or close enough to it that the spirit is the same: a soup bone from the butcher, root vegetables from the pantry, time doing the work the way time does when you let it. St. Patrick’s Irish Beef Dinner is the kind of recipe that rewards exactly the kind of cooking I did that evening: unhurried, purposeful, making more than you need because someone you love is coming and you want the good thing already waiting when she walks through the door.

St. Patrick’s Irish Beef Dinner

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 2 hours 30 minutes | Total Time: 2 hours 50 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 2 to 2 1/2 lbs beef soup bone (or bone-in beef shank)
• 2 lbs beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 8 cups water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
• 3 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 2 medium parsnips, peeled and chopped
• 2 medium turnips, peeled and cubed
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 3 stalks celery, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped (for serving)

Instructions

1. Build the broth. Place the soup bone and stew meat in a large stockpot or Dutch oven. Add water, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, skimming any foam that rises to the surface.
2. Simmer low and slow. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 1 hour 30 minutes, until the meat is beginning to become tender and the broth has deepened in color and flavor.
3. Remove the bone. Lift out the soup bone. When cool enough to handle, strip any meat from the bone, shred it, and return it to the pot. Discard the bone.
4. Add the vegetables. Stir in carrots, potatoes, parsnips, turnips, onions, celery, and garlic. Add the diced tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, and bay leaf. Stir to combine.
5. Continue simmering. Return heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for another 45 to 60 minutes, until all vegetables are fork-tender and the broth is rich and well-seasoned.
6. Finish and serve. Remove the bay leaf. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh parsley. Serves well the next day — flavor deepens overnight.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 27g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 520mg