I’ve been busy for a few months with some big work deadlines and had to be absent from the blog. I finally completed one of my deadlines and am excited to come back to Living Hilo Style. I am kicking off my return with an easy stew. I’m still playing ‘Chopped’ with the things I have in my kitchen, so today I’m using a pack of oxtail from Costco I had in my freezer and a pack of beef stew meat from my Kaunamano Farms subscription box with veggies that I have at home.

I wanted to make sure that the beef will be tender and fall off the bone so I simmered it for hours with some lemongrass from my garden. After a few hours, I removed the meat and lemongrass from the pot, put in some homemade chicken broth that I had saved in the freezer after roasting a Punachicks chicken (also from my Kaunamano Farms box) and added a chopped onion, a few cloves of minced garlic, some chopped tomatoes, a Hawaiian chili pepper, and a chunk of ginger from my garden with some tomato paste and let it simmer more. I then added the fall-off-the-bone oxtails and stew meat to pot with carrots, potatoes, and star anise. I let it simmer until the veggies were nice and soft. To serve, just garnish with cilantro and green onions and serve over rice or with crusty bread. It was a hit at my house. Living Hilo Style.