Noo Yawk City??? (Beef Saffron Stew)

Wasn't such a hot 2 days as Whole30 compliance goes. Started off perfectly yesterday with a vegetable dairy free omelet, fruit, water, and black coffee ($24, gotta love Manhattan) but then went totally off the rails at lunch, dinner (incredible Thai dinner at ViV in East Midtown), breakfast (NY bagel anyone??!!), and lunch again. I started fresh again this evening for dinner with a hearty Beef and Butternut Squash stew.

I sort of cobbled this together from a bunch of online recipes - didn't exactly measure but this is a good guess at amounts.  MAN was it good!!!

Start with:
1 lb. stew beef - browned

1 sweet or yellow onion - roughly chopped and thrown in to sauté with the beef

3 cloves garlic, chopped and also thrown in with the beef

Once this is all somewhat cooked, add and BTBRTS (bring to a boil and reduce to simmer):

4c sugar free beef stock (Swanson has a good one)

28oz can diced tomatoes

1 lg butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cubed

3 bay leaves

Black pepper (1/2 t.)

Sea salt (1/2 t.)

Paprika (1 t.)

Ground cumin (1/2 t.)

Ground coriander (1/2 t.)

Mexican oregano (1 t.)

Dried basil (1 t.)

Turmeric (1/4 t.)

Several (4-8) threads of saffron

Cook until the squash is soft and the herbs are rehydrated. Sorry I didn't track quantities of spices - I'll put guesses next to each but adjust to taste!!

Enjoy!