Beef Stew

First off...the pretzel dogs were not what I expected.  I took pictures, and maybe I'll post them another day - but they looked better than they tasted.  They have you boil them in a baking soda and water bath, supposedly to give them a crispy outside...they were just WAY too salty tasting!  I think I am going to go the pigs in a blanket route next time and wrap them in the dough-in-a-can croissants!!

OK...Beef Stew....DELICIOUS!!!!

I know, what kind of blogger doesn't post pictures - I have been feeling kinda under the weather for the past week or so and quite honestly I don't want to go through the process of downloading them...so take it from me, the beef stew looked totally normal, and it was delicious!!

Here's what you'll need....
-A Crock Pot
-About 1-1/2 pounds of beef stew meat (go to the meat section at the grocery store, the butcher will show you)
-A small bag of baby carrots (I think it was a one pound bag)
-About 4 medium sized potatoes
-An onion
-Two 8-ounce cans, or I used one 15 ounce can of tomato sauce (Not marinara sauce).
-Some pepper, seasoning salt...maybe a bay leaf.


Alright - here's what I did...
I cut up the stew meat using my deadly sharp kitchen shears into smaller pieces so it was child friendly.  Then I used my Vidalia Chopper (but you could obviously just use a knife) to cut the carrots and potatoes and onion into the desired size pieces and throw them into the Crock Pot with the meat.  Put your seasoning on now (pepper, seasoning salt, a bay leaf) and mix it all up.  Then pour your tomato sauce on top, mix it around a little and then let it cook!!

I put in on High for about 5 hours and then left in on low until my husband got home at around 8:30pm....I started it around 1pm I think....The recipe said to cook on Low for 8-10 hours, but I've learned that with the Crock Pot you can put it on High for a while at the beginning to make up for lost time and then turn it down and let it go to low later.

This was REALLY good, the meat was super easy for the kids to eat and the veggies were plenty soft.  Obviously, if this was for a more mature audience you could cook it less and not have the veggies get totally mushy, but that's a personal preference!

Please let me know if you have any questions, or if you try it!!