October is here and with it, the cold weather! Call me crazy- but I love the winter months. Warm drinks, cozy blankets, and delicious hearty stews!馃崄馃崅
So, I figured I would share my first stew of the season!馃嵅
Ingredients
- Beef chuck roast
- Carrots
- Potatoes
- Spinach
- 1/2 Onion
- Garlic
- Rosemary
- Bay Leaf
- 5 Beef bouillon cubes
- Salt
- Pepper
You can always add your own veggies like celery, mushrooms, or green beans!
Selecting the cut for the stew was the easy part. I grabbed a chuck roast - mostly because it was on sale! Which is always a win!
To get this stew preparation party started, I pre-heated my skillet on high heat, chopped half an onion, and seasoned the roast with some salt and pepper. I never measure my seasonings, I just go based on the personal taste of my household.
Once I felt the meat was sufficiently seasoned, I placed the roast on the preheated skillet. I toasted each side for about 4-5 minutes while keeping the heat on high till it was a nice brown color.
I grabbed my pot and added a few of my ingredients.
- 6 cups of water
- 3 beef bouillon cubes
- browned roast
- chopped onions
- 1 bay leaf
Note: If you prefer a thicker broth you can do 4 cups of water. I'm cooking this in an Instant Pot, so this stage will vary for those using a crockpot. Also, crockpot users, you're going to want to add your potatoes and carrots at this stage!
After setting the Instant Pot to cook for an hour (on high heat) I grabbed the taters and carrots for chopping! The potatoes got cut into 1/4ths and the carrots were chopped to what I felt was a reasonable size for the stew.
I love using these red potatoes for a few reasons:
- Easy to chop.
- Don't have to worry about skinning them.
- Their small size allows them to cook faster. This is also the reason I delayed in adding them. To prevent them from dissolving under the high heat and becoming mush.
One hour later...
When inspecting the roast I noticed how much fat was on this piece of meat. So I decided to take a moment to cut the fat away.
I added the trimmed roast back to the pot and added our remaining ingredients:
-chopped potatoes
-chopped carrots
-2 beef bouillon cubes
-few pinches of rosemary
-a little bit of garlic
-1 more bay leaf
Then I set the instant pot for another hour and thirty minutes and waited veeeeeery patiently.
Once the timer went off I removed the bay leaves and topped it off with three handfuls of spinach for some fresh greens and served!
Note: If you are doing this in a crockpot you will need to cook this for 3-5 hours on high heat for similar results.
This is not a fancy stew nor am I a professional chef. This is just something I learned how to make growing up and personally find to be an easy meal! What it lacks in flair, it makes up for in being delicious, filling, and cost-effective!
馃崅Have a Happy & Healthy October!馃嵈