Fantastic Food Friday: Beef Stew

I'm a huge fan of crock pot meals and this is one of our favorites.

Beef (or Pork) Stew
2 tablespoons flour
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 pound beef or pork stew meat
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup sliced celery
2 cups sliced carrots
2 1/4 cups cubed, peeled potatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon dried basil, crushed
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
1 bay leaf
2 1/2 cups veggie broth (works out to a can plus a bit of water/wine)

Place flour with salt and peeper in a plastic bag. Add meat cubes shaking to coat. In a skillet, heat oil and brown the meat. Layer all the ingredients in crock pot topping with browned meat and veggie broth. Cook on low for 10-12 hours. In the last 1/2 hour, I add a cup of frozen peas and thicken the gravy if needed.

I love getting deals on meat and Mark managed to get a great one on a huge package of stew meat.  In the past I've usually just broken the raw meat into individual meals.  This time I browned it all and packaged it up for the freezer.  The only thing the freezer bags are missing are the potatoes and veggie broth.









Dumplings
2/3 cup flour
1 tablespoon parsley
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon thyme
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons oil

Mix all ingredients together with a fork till just combined. Drop mixture atop stew the last 1/2 hour of crock pot cooking.

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