A few nights ago when we were still confined to indoors because of the ice/snow that lingered on the ground, (don’t be misled by the negative words, I loved this past week as it gave me excuse for staying in and baking until I ALMOST ran out of butter and eggs) The thoughts of beef stew just kept going through my mind. I had ordered something I had not ordered before with my grocery order so found the stew meat in the freezer and went to work! Normally, for some reason when I make soup or stew it seems like I use chicken and chicken broth but because I had ordered this new item, I decided to try something new. I shared a little bit of the stew with a friend that came to help me repair a leg on a antique chest that broke when I was rearranging furniture the day before. Even he said he had not had a beef stew that he loved as much as this one and both Randy and I agreed that this was some of the best stew I had ever made. And we owe it all to this new ingredient and trying something different.
As we sat and enjoyed the stew, I was reminded of the vegetable beef soup we used to have when I was in elementary and it was then that I began to love having Fritoes with it instead of crackers. So that’s exactly what I did the other night. I topped it with Fritos and Randy used his crackers. We were both happy campers!
1 lb of stew meat chopped up into tiny pieces,
1 small onion, chopped
3 medium size carrots, sliced
1/2 green bell pepper cut up (optional as I know some people don’t like bell pepper or they have trouble digesting it)
2 celery sticks sliced
3 medium size potatoes cut in small cubes
1 teas thyme
1-2 teas diced garlic or 1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teas Lawrys Seasoning salt
1 14.5 oz can of petite cut tomatoes
2 tablespoons of beef stock (pictured below the type and brand)
2-3 cans of water depending on how many veggies you have in crock pot but enough to completely cover them
pepper to taste. no additional salt will probably be needed as the beef stock has salt plus the Lawrys
Brown the meat in a little Oil and butter (yes butter) and cook until meat is no longer pink. set aside
chop and cut veggies and add to crockpot with the tomatoes, water and beef stock! add seasonings and meat!
Turn Crockpot on high for 2 hrs then check to be sure you do not need to add additional water . Turn crockpot on low and continue cooking until veggies are done! This beef stock added amazing flavor and cutting up the stew meat into small pieces allowed the stew meat to be so tender.
Chocolate Castles 