I wanted to make it for a long time. From the recipes I
read, Chinese or otherwise, borscht sounded like a great
addition to my culinary repertoire. It looked good and
nutritionally sound and, judged from the apparent zeal of
the authors and online commenters, must taste great.

This time, I mainly followed the recipe from this post
with some twists. Here's exactly what I did.

Ingredients (All fresh vegetables are diced.)
- 2 pieces of beef shank w/ bones, about 2 lbs
- 14 oz of canned whole tomato
- 2 tbsps of coconut oil
- 1 cup of red wine
- 1 medium sized beet
- 1 large purple onion
- half medium sized cabbage
- 1 large carrot
- 1 stalk of celery
- 6 roma tomatos
- 1 large russet potato

Steps
1. Add coconut oil in a dutch oven over medium heat and
    brown the meat. Give each side 4 full minutes.
2. Take out the meat and put in the onion, stir for 2 minutes,
    pour in the wine, and stir for another 1 or 2 minutes.
3. Put the meat on top of the onion, and tomato on top of
    the meat, pour in the canned tomato.
4. Add 2 cups of water.
5. Bring to a boil and turn down the heat to low and simmer
    for 2.5 hours.
6. Put in the rest of the vegetables and turn the meat on
    top and simmer for another 1 hour.
7. Add salt and pepper.                    

"Improvement" ideas include
a. salt the meat one day ahead,
b. bring the meat to room temperature first (about 30min),
c. starch/flour-coat the 2nd piece of meat before browning, and
d. try different cuts of meat.

P.S. I bought grass-fed beef shank at about $8.00/lb. So the
whole pot would have a net cost of about $25.00 and could
easily serve 4 meals. I could have used less beef, though.
Anyway, another step toward freedom.