Beautiful Ghent

We spent an afternoon meeting with David Geens near Gent. He’s our National Communication Director for Belgium and he’s a social media genius. It was really fascinating to learn from him. He is practical, realistic and insightful. We learned new things that will help us in our work in the Europe Area.

After our meeting, we went to David’s home for dinner and a delightful evening of more visiting and meeting his family. Isabel, his wife prepared a delicious traditional Belgium dinner for us–Stoofvlees, a beautifully flavored stew served with freshly made french fries. Isabel shared the recipe with me and some of the ingredients with me so I can make it.

Recipe STOOFVLEES

Ingredients :

Big pot

1kg of beef ( chopped in pieces )

3 onions

1 slice of bread ( without the crust )

1 tablespoon of mustard (spread on the bread)

At least 2 tblsp of stoofvlees herbs

3 bay leaves

Pepper and salt

Sugar

Vinegar

Starch

*Chop the onions into small pieces, fry them in some butter.

*Add the meet, the herbs, pepper and salt and bake till the meet is brown at the outside.

( heat on medium )

*Add water ( till the pot is half full ) -> since it will be cooking for quite some time.

*Take the bread and put the mustard on it. Add the bread to the meet (mustard down )

*Add the bay leaves and let this cook slowly ( low heat ) for 3 hours ( more or less ).

*Try to cut the meet once in a while and see if it’s cooked enough.

*Once it is, add a few spoons of sugar and start with one spoon of vinegar.

*Also add pepper and salt compared to your taste.

*Use starch or anything to thicken the sauce.

It’s a very personal recipe and it stands or falls with the right seasoning.

If you have any questions… please let me know!

After a wonderful visit, and breakfast in the morning, we left to visit Gent before going to our next meetings.

Gent was incredible. We could’ve wandered there for several days. We were grateful for a few hours to see as much as we could.

One of our important destinations was St Bavo’s Cathedral where the Gent Altarpiece is housed. More about that masterpiece in the next post. Here are some pics of the cathedral: