Beef Stew Slow Cooker Style!

So Saturday I used my slow cooker again and this time convinced Mr L that we had to buy a bigger slow cooker, due to not being able to fit the potatoes in with the recipe. I have to say I was really surprised that he agreed to it so easily, thought that there would be more of a fight but he was happy to get another one. He can see the benefits of having a slow cooker now that we have used it successfully a couple of times.

This time we made beef stew and it was lovely. I adapted a recipe that I had seen for  slow cooker stew and I am glad that I did, it was really nice. I am not a great lover of stews, but even I liked it. Although my slow cooker was to small for dumplings so we had it minus these, and as I said before we couldn’t fit the potatoes in. Which wasn’t a major problem, it just meant that we made mash when we got back. Still yummy!

The recipe is also simple, like it is for most stews so it is quick and easy and one that will definitely be repeated in our house.

Here is the exact recipe that I used.

INGREDIENTS:

Braising Steak, I just put in the whole pack chopped up into small pieces.

2 medium-sized Carrots

Swede or 2 Parsnips (we used parsnips)

1 cup of Frozen peas and sweetcorn (we just used peas for this as we had no sweetcorn)

1 large onion

1/2 a pint of beef stock

3 tablespoons of olive oil

3 tablespoons of plain flour

Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

Chop the onions up finely, slice the parsnips  (swede) and carrots into thin slices and chop the steak into small pieces.

Sprinkle the flour into 8 tablespoons of water and mix into a paste.

Add all the ingredients, except the flour paste into a large pan on a medium heat. Mix and warm the ingredients throughly for 7 minutes stirring. If your pan is not large enough you may need to do this in two batches.

Add all of the ingredients from the pan into the slow cooker. Add the flour paste, mix the ingredients throughly. Adding the beef stock.

Put the slow cooker onto a high heat.

After 30 minutes turn the slow cooker heat down to low and let it cook for 8 hours.

Serve with mashed potatoes and some thick bread.

Yum yum. Mr L and Baba thought that this was a huge hit. So it will be repeated.

This recipe can also be frozen which I have done for the little bit left over. This is also very simple. Poor the beef stew into freezer containers and let it cool, then freeze. Defrost when required cook for 15 minutes stirring every five minutes and serve when the food is heated throughout.