I am giving Honey the credit for this stew. Grandpa still loves to buy meat, and double packages were on special last week.  He told me the general rule is one will be tender and one will be tough. His suggestion was to cook one as a roast and one as a stew, especially if the roast is very tender. Cooking of the other one as stew meat would assure it to be tender as possible.

Don’t tell Grandpa he is as brilliant as he is! The last time he gave me two roasts I cooked both as roasts and one was tough as leather! I know I will confess to Grandpa he called it correctly. What you do is trim the beef into bite size pieces, I make enough to save for lunches for a few days so I cook it all but you could make two or three stews out of it.

• Roast you have trimmed and cut into bite size pieces

• 1 Tbsp of Tone’s beef base (whatever brand you find)

• 1/4 cup of flour

• Salt, pepper and seasoned salt to taste

• 1 lb or more of carrots

• 2 big potatoes or whatever you have

• 1 onion

• celery if you have it (I didn’t)

• 2 cups of water

• 1 6oz can of tomato paste

• a can of tomatoes or diced tomatoes (if you have it)

• can of peas (if you have it, I did)

The ingredient list is not as important as how you cook the meat, the technique is what makes the beef tender. I know I sound like a know it all but remember I spent my childhood wanting and craving good beef stew, now that I can make it I know what went wrong all those years. You need a great pot, cast iron works best because it can maintain the temperature. Take a little bit of olive oil and place it in the pot. Meanwhile take the trimmed, cut up beef and toss it in the flour with salt, pepper and seasoned salt. Then you put the meat in the pot that is fully flour coated. This will allow the meat to brown, but not fully cook. It will only take a few minutes of you turning and tossing until all sides are brown but not burned or fully cooked.

Once it is browned, put in two cups of water, beef base  and cover. Cut up the vegatables, but don’t worry about the tomato paste or peas. Toss in the pot all at once (another very important step) all the veggies, and salt, pepper and seasoned salt to taste. Let it come back up to bubbling, Then about two hours from serving put in the tomato paste. Right before serving put in the can of peas. The diced tomatoes can be put in whenever you like.

This stew should cook 5-6 hours in total on very low heat for the entire time except when you are browning your meat.

This stew will be tender and flavorful, but the flavor is centered around slow cooked beef.

Oh I know you are welcome, once I tried it this way I knew I had to share with you the easiness of this recipe!

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