Beef Stew

This is seriously the most amazing beef stew ever.  The secret:  red wine and sun dried tomatoes (no canned tomatoes!).  The broth has incredible flavor.  The texture is thick and wonderful.  And the best part??  **Drum roll please** I tweaked the recipe so I could throw it in the Crock pot!  Which takes the difficulty level of the original recipe down a few notches.  How can you argue with that?

Ingredients:  cube steak or stew meat, red wine, garlic, bay leaves, flour, salt, pepper, olive oil, onions, carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, frozen peas, chicken stock, Italian seasoning, sun dried tomatoes and Worcestershire sauce.

Add the beef to a bowl with the red wine, garlic and bay leaves.  Cover and leave to marinate a few hours or overnight.

Chop up the carrots, potatoes, onion and mushrooms.

Season the flour with salt and pepper.

Dredge the beef in the flour mixture.  Save the marinade.

Heat some olive oil in a skillet and brown the meat over medium heat.

Preheat a Crock pot and add the meat to the pot along with the marinade and the rest of the ingredients.  Season with Italian seasoning.

Mix it all together and cook over low heat for 6-8 hours or high heat for 4-5 hours.

And that's it!  Pretty easy huh??

The flour that was on the beef thickens the broth.  It has a wonderful beef flavor as opposed to a canned tomato flavor.  The sun dried tomatoes add just the right pop of tomato without overwhelming the beef and the meat is so incredibly tender and mouth watering.  This is hearty and delicious!  This is a one pot meal that will become a staple at our house.  Enjoy!

Link to the printable recipe:

Note:  I tweaked it slightly to make it work for the Crockpot.  But the ingredients are the same.

Beef Stew

Source:  Barefoot Contessa