Beautiful Beef Stew

I found a nice looking roast for $7 at Superstore, so I thought I would try a beef stew. I worked off this recipe I found at allrecipes.com. It's a great site that lets you save recipes and read reviews. Anyway, I used the recipe as an outline, but I was pretty liberal with changes and additions.

I always try to follow the "always brown your meat!" rule, but sometimes I get lazy. Not this time...

I used a decent sized roast, so I browned the meat in 3 batches.

While the beef was undergoing the Maillard reaction, I chopped up some potatoes, carrots and onions. I also sautéed an onion in the pan that the beef was in. I used about a 1/2c. of red wine to deglaze the pan.

From there, I dumped everything into the Crockpot.

As you can see, I forgot the celery, so I just threw a couple of stocks on top.

6 hours later....


3lbs cubed beef
4 potatoes
4 carrots
2 onions
2 cups water
1 pack of dry onions soup mix
1 tbsp Worcestershire
1/2 c. red wine
salt & pepper
1/2 c. frozen peas
1/4 c. warm water
2 tbsp flour

1. Brown the beef!!!!!

2. Chop the potatoes, carrots and 1 onion. Throw into the crockpot.

3. Dice the remaining onion and sautee in the pan used to brown the beef (by now the beef should be in the crockpot!).

4. Add the red wine to the onions and deglaze the pan. The onions should be caramelized before they meet the red wine. Make sure you scrape up all the brown bits. They're delicious. Add the mixture to the crock.

5. In a separate container, mix 2 cups of water with the onion soup and the Worcestershire. Add it all to the crock.

6. A little salt & pepper maybe? Ohh! The celery! Just throw a couple stock on top of everything. I think I'll do this from now on. All the flavour without soggy celery. I simply discard the stocks once it's cooked.

7. Set the crock to low and cook for around 6 hours or until the beef is fork tender (you know, fall aparty).

8. Remove lid and add frozen peas.

9 In a separate container, mix 2 tbsp of flour with 1/4 cup of water until smooth. Add to the crock and turn to high for 15 minutes. This step is simply to thick the stew. If you like it thin, you can skip this step, but then it wouldn't be stew would it?