How to Cook : Vegetable Beef Stew

I love to cook. But I don’t usually love to cook for very long at one time. So this is one recipe that, to me, has a big payoff in terms of time spent in the kitchen. A little chopping and a little stirring in the morning, and you have a house that smells good all day and a big bowl of hearty comfort food come suppertime. Let’s get started!

These are your main ingredients, your heavy hitters. 2 pounds of beef stew meat, 4 potatoes, a couple stalks of celery, an onion (or two if you’re so inclined), and 3 carrots. (I used some carrots we’d froze from the garden this fall, so there might be more than 3 there. Probably about 4 cups.) You can change up the amount of vegetables in this as you see fit. I usually just eyeball the potato-to-carrot-to-celery ratio.

First, the stew meat. Ours comes from the locker cut up into largish chunks. You can use the big chunks as is, or cut ’em up smaller if you like. I cut each chunk into smaller chunks. I figure it’s easier for the kids to eat, and it spreads the beefy goodness throughout the dish more.

Throw the stew meat into your crockpot, and then sprinkle 1/4 cup flour, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper over the meat. Give everything a good stir to coat the meat with the flour, salt & pepper. Cut the potatoes, carrots, celery and onion into chunks and throw them right in. You can leave the peel on the potatoes if you like. That’s what I would do, if our potatoes had nicer skins. But the last couple of years we’ve had some sort of scab on the skins, so I peel them.

(Anybody know what might cause that scab? I’m thinking too much nitrogen in the soil, but not sure what I could put in the trench when I plant them to counteract that.)

Finally, throw in the remaining ingredients: 2 cups beef broth, 2 t. Worcestershire sauce, and 2 t. paprika. Give everything another good stir, throw in a couple of bay leaves, and you’re done! Cover and cook on low 8 hours, medium 6 hours, or high 4 hours.

Vegetable Beef Stew
2 lbs. stew meat
1/4 c. flour
1-1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
4 potatoes, cubed
3 carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 onion, diced
2 c. beef broth
2 t. Worcestershire sauce
1 t. paprika
2 bay leaves

Put stew meat in crockpot. Sprinkle with flour, salt and pepper. Stir to coat meat. Add vegetables, and them remaining ingredients except bay leaves. Stir all, add bay leaves and cover. Cook on low 8 hours, medium 6 hours, or high 4 hours.