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I am looking for a good beef stew recipe. James always has a bunch of men stay at our house the first weekend of deer hunting (slug season). I always make a big meal for them. He decided that he wants beef stew this year. I have never made beef stew. I need some recipes!!

Well you could always go and buy a bunch of those beef stew crockpot bagged dinner thingys! Just kidding, I don't have an actual recipe. When we make it we just throw in cubed stew beef, with a few huge cans of Veg-all veggies, and some seasoning. Just a throw together. Nothing fancy.

I just know someone will have a good recipe!

I could buy those bagged ones. I suppose I should make a homemade one!

Well I don't need anything fancy. Just something.

I have some shredded beef in the freezer that I froze from when I made hot beef sandwiches. I wonder if I can put that meat in there?? I could use it up that way.

When are they coming exactly? Do you have time to try a small trial run of it? That's what I do when I'm making something new for someone. I make it for us first.

Valarie says the bagged things are not so good. While I think it would be ok to use for the family, for a bunch of Jame's friends yoy might want to do home-made.Below is my recipe.

Beef Stew

1-2 LB Stew Meat (any good no fat beef, cut into 1 to 2 inch pieces)
2-4 potatoes, (cut into about 1 inch chunks)
2-4 Carrots, (cut into 1/2 inch pieces)
1-2 stalks of celery (cut into 1/2 inch pieces)--Optional---
1-2 onions--I use about 1/2 to 3/4 cup--(cut up into slices or chunks.

Dredge meat in seasoned flower. Place in dutch oven or stew pot and brown in small amount of oil. Add veggies. Barely cover with water. Cook 1-2 hours on medium or medium low.

* you can add a can of crushed tomatoes, with veggies. If you are using Deer this would be a good idea.
*if you find the stew broth too 'watery', you can add some beef bouillon to the stew.


Slow cooker beef stew:

1/3 C. Flour
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 lbs. beef stew meat cut inot 1 inch pieces
3 TB butter
1 C. water
1 beef bouillon cube
1 C. onion, chopped
1 28 oz. can whole tomatoes, undrained
1 green pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces (ME I would substitute several carrots........cut up)--I have not ever used green pepper in stew.
**me, I would add a few cut up potatoes too.**
2 TB cornstarch
1/4 C. cold water

In a med sized bowl, combine flour, salt & pepper. Coat meat with this mixture.
melt butter in pan and brown meat. Remove meat.set aside. add water to meat drippings, and bring to a boil. Add bouillon cube, stirring until dissolved. add the mixture and meat to a slow cooker or crock pot. add the onions, tomatoes, carrots, and potaotes if desired. simmer on medium for 3 or 4 hours, or till meat is tender and veggies are done.

If you want a gravy typ[e of sauce, stir the cornstarch into the cold water.

add to stew and bring up to a boil, stirring until thickened
\
makes 6 to 8 servings. (esp if you add the potatoes and carrots)


Here is a yorkshire pudding recipe to make and put on a plate/bowl under stew.

1 cup flour
1/.2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs

Blend well. coat a 9 or 10 inch skillet with oil, heat. When hot, pour enough of the batter into the skillet to make a thin layer about the size of the skillet. cook like you would a pancake.--when one side is lightly browned, flip and cook the other side.

This is much like a crepe or unsweetened un levened pancake. It makes the stew a special meal and is more filling this way as well.

I just read about the shredded beef---why not make then BBQ beef sandwiches.


You could serve the sandwiches with either potato salad or chips and pickles.-If you served chips, you could perhaps serve deviled eggs as well??

Thne serve a nice dessert--let James pick.--((Men love dessert))

Thank you for the recipes Carol! I could definitely make BBQ Beef sandwiches but James has stew in his head. I don't have to use that meat. Just thought maybe I could use it up! I have made BBQ's or sloppy joes (everybody calls them something different) the last couple of years and they like them but we thought we could have something different this year. The yorkshire pudding sounds really good too! I will definitely have to try that sometime!

Loz....yes I do have time. It is Nov. 8th that they will be staying. I like to make things once first to try them too because what if it would taste terrible. Then what would I do.

Do you all have a turkey fryer? No kidding-- it would be cool to make a big old pot of stew using the turkey fryer. We've done gumbo for 50 people in the pot on the fryer. Failing that, John's made stew in a cast iron pot on the grill. Would be a nice outdoorsy theme... guys huddled around an open flame & all that!

I make mine in the crockpot alot. If I am going to be cooking something all day long, it goes in the crock! I don't actually use a recipe tho. I throw my meat in, add some water (not too much tho...that doesn't really help tho, does it )...maybe 2 cups of water. You could use the shredded meat...would work just fine. I cut up a few potatoes into cubes (we like a hearty stew), throw in some green beans. I like frozen ones, but if I don't have any then canned ones work just fine too. I also cut up a few carrots...well...slice them...and throw them in. And I cut up (slice up, I guess) 2-3 ribs of celery. I usually put in some beef bullion...maybe 2 or 3 teaspoons?? I get it in a tub that says beef soup base and I just kind of scoop a couple spoon fulls in. Add some salt (I don't salt much while cooking usually) and pepper to taste. I also use Adobo seasoning...mine does not have pepper in it and when I do use that then I don't use salt. keep in mind with the soup base...it has salt in it. Oh...I also usually take a sweet onion and cut it into 1 inch pieces and throw that in. Then I set the crock pot on 8 hour setting (mine has a 4 hour, 6 hour, 8 hour, and 10 hour setting instead of low, med, high). So, the thing literally gets put together in the morning and is ready at dinner time. I'm sure just putting the thing on high or med for the day would be OK....mine goes to a warm setting when the time setting is done.

Thanks Jenn! Since I don't really have to cook the beef should I add that later?? Or does it really matter? Does the sauce or whatever you would call it just thicken up on its own?? Stew to me always has a gravy type sauce.

i put my meat in a dutch oven or what ever pan is the size i need the stew to be. the amount of meat is determined by the number of people being fed and how much money i have. when the kids were little it was about a pound (what ever was in the package) of cubed beef. when i was feeding teenagers it was 2 pounds when the budget permitted.

then, i covered it with water, added a chopped onion, a shake of garlic powder, some salt, pepper, a couple of bay leaves, a splash of soy sauce (maybe 1-3 tablespoons), and a couple splashes of Worcestershire sauce. i turned that on high (watching to make sure water stayed in it) while i did the rest of the veggies. i turn it down to medium when i start adding the veggies. carrots in first, then potatoes, then green beans, and a can of corn last. once in a while, i would add a can of tomato sauce to give it color. and i served with bisquick biscuits and butter. by the time the biscuits are done, it is usually edible. if i have time, i let it cook longer though. the longer the better, just make sure the bottom doesn't scorch. i've also added celery before the carrots for flavor.

now, i do the same thing, but i use either the frozen veggies or a can of veg-all. i got lazy, and the hands don't peel potatoes, carrots, etc. like they used to. besides i don't need a big dutch oven or stock pot full anymore.

I actually like Veg all. It's easy and fast and cheap!

I like the flour dredged meat browned, it adds a rich color to the gravy and some thickness to it too. I also like to brown the onions for the color. I use soup base here often also but you do need to go easy on added salt when you use it. Stew is easy and forgiving. Meat, onions, carrots and potatoes are must have items. Everything else added is tasty fluff. I like garlic, celery, and any other veggies that sound good to you except strongly flavored ones like broccoli and cabbage. If you add those you have another dish altogether. I like squash and root crops like rutabagas also. I also like dumplings in mine. O biscuits on the side. Garlic bread or Texas toast on the side work too. Then it is a single pot meal. Follow it up with a pumpkin or sweet potato pie and you won't get complaints.

In the freezer section there are bags of frozen "stew veggies" in a bag.

that would makeit easier on you too.

I think having the potatoes in there thickens it up. Like someone else said, you could dredge the meat in some flour and then fry it real quick...but if it is already cooked, it might overcook the meat. So what you may want to do if it is too thin for you is take a cup and put some warm water in it ....maybe a cup or so...and put 2 tablespoons of flour into that and mix it up well then dump it into the crock or whatever your cooking it in.

All this talk of stew has made me hungry for it and I'm totally going to make it today...its 10:00 which means I should start it now!

I'll take a picture of it so you can see the consistency of it, ok? :)

That sounds great Jenn! Can't wait to see it!! I better do a trial run of this!

Stew is soo forgiving because really its a good way to just use up what you have. I kind of think that is part of the history of stew. Anyways, I just used some low grade steaks that I had thawed the other day and hadn't used. I fried it up and added Adobo seasoning to it (because I use that in pretty much everything), added some garlic powder also. I cut up celery ribs and carrots and put those in the crock then threw the meat in and stirred it up. I didn't have any frozen green beans, so I just dumped in a can of them (drained the can first). Added a couple cups of water to it. That is as far as I got before Maddie needed a snack and Luke needed a bottle. I still need to cut an onion and throw it in there and cut some potatoes to throw in there.

I just wanted to add that I almost always use frozen veggies....they are actually fresher than the fresh produce you'll find at the store. Frozen veggies are picked at the height of freshness and then flash frozen where as alot of time the fresh produce in stores is picked early and left to ripen on the way to the stores....less flavor alot of times. I'll finish feeding Luke and then unload the pictures and post them.

Here is the beef cooking and the carrots and celery in the crock already...


Here is all is in the crock and stirred up...missing the taters and onions...will get to those after I take maddie's pictures. You can see there isn't much water in it right now....if it is too low in a couple hours, I'll just add some with beef soup base in it.

Looks really good Jenn!! Thanks for showing the pics! I want more as it progresses!

I'm currently boiling limas to stick in there. When I make stew, I definitely clean out the refrigerator. The other day I was planning on making ham and bean soup so I got some dried northern beans out and soaked them over night. The next day I looked at them...they weren't northern beans!! I pulled the bag out of the garbage...yup..lima beans! UGH! Then on top of it all, I had forgotten to pull the ham out of the freezer to thaw overnight anyways. So, in the frig the stupid beans sat. now they are boiling away in a pot until they are cooked...then I'll just put them in the stew as well.

I still haven't gotten the potatoes cut up, but the onions are in. What a week this has been!

Ug

I get many of those days.. Then I hate going to get food only once a weeker here..

b

So, forgive me. The kids were going crazy when Stephen came home and we just sat down and ate before I remembered to take a picture!!!! Sorry!!! It ended up being more of a "stoup" as Rachel Ray calls it anyways. I didn't have any flour (can you imagine!!??) to thicken it up just a tad. Oh well...everyone ate and was happy....that's all that matters.

Sure
Happy family comes first. Just joking...Glad they eat well.

That's okay Jenn! I will do a trial stew.