Beef Stew With Dumplings-Great Comfort Food All Year Round!

Today’s Menu: Beef stew with dumplings, and homemade buns.

There’s something to be said about the simplicity of a beef stew.  No fancy ingredients, easy to make, and oh so tasty.  The recipe that I enjoy the most calls for no more than 8 ingredients, and very few steps to pull it all together.  I prepared my stew in my slow cooker yesterday, and reheated it in my Dutch oven this afternoon.  The one advantage to doing it this way is that when the stew itself cools off, all the fat floats to the surface and you can easily skim it off before reheating and serving it.   Here is my basic recipe, but feel free to adjust it as you wish-more vegetables, more meat, and so on.

•    4lbs stewing beef
•    3 tbsp. flour
•    Pinch salt
•    Pinch pepper
•    3 tbsp. oil, for browning beef
•    8 cups beef stock (or, if you choose, you can use 2 packages of beef stew mix and 8 cups of water)
•    Two large potatoes, cut into ½ inch cubes
•    Two large carrots, cut into medium sized pieces
•    Two stalks celery, cut into medium sized pieces

In a large zip top bag, add in flour, salt and pepper, and stewing beef.  Shake bag to coat beef.  In a medium sized frying pan, heat oil on medium high heat.  Brown the stewing meat on both sides and place into slow cooker.  Add beef stock or water and beef stew mix to slow cooker, and set on low.  I let mine cook for approximately 5 hours, until the stewing beef fell apart and was fork tender.  At that point, you want to add in your potatoes, carrots and celery and let simmer for another few hours, until potatoes are fork tender but not mushy.  At this point, once the potatoes are cooked, you can turn off the crock pot, let it cool and put into the fridge overnight, or if you’re preparing it on the stove, you may want to thicken up the stew with some cornstarch and water (take 2 tbsp cornstarch and 1 cup of cold water and mix together-add this to the beef stew as it comes to a bubble, stirring to prevent lumps).  If you’re using the slow cooker, skim off the fat, place into stock pot and reheat, adding your cornstarch mixture to thicken.

Now, the topping of the stew are the tasty dumplings.  These are completely optional, but definitely make a great addition to the stew and are quite simple to make.

•    1 ½ cups flour
•    ¾ tsp salt
•    2 tsp baking powder
•    ¼ cup butter or margarine
•    ¾ cup milk

Combine flour, seasonings and baking powder in mixing bowl. Cut in the margarine or butter and then mix in the milk to make soft dough. Separate into 5 to 6 pieces and place carefully into stew.  After adding dumplings to stew, cover with lid and let steam for about 15 minutes.  Top each bowl with a dumpling.

Happy Eating!