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Ok Gunslingergirl, try this, but keep in mind, cooking is not an exact science. Amounts of ingredients don't have to be exact. Also if you want your stew thicker, just cook it down. If it gets too thick, add liquid.
1 cup sliced carrots
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup sliced celery
In your pot sweat these ingredients together in some olive oil with some salt & pepper (fresh ground if you please) over medium low heat for about 5 minutes. Add a few cloves of crushed garlic and let sweat for a couple more minutes. Turn up the heat to medium high and brown about a pound of stew meat. Add a couple Tbls of flour and incorporate
When the meat is browned and the flour is moist (it might start to get gummy and you think you are doing something wrong), add about a quart of stock (chicken, beef or vegetable it doesn't really matter) and scrape the bits of good stuff off the bottom of the pan.
Then add the next batch of ingredients:
3 or 4 red potatoes quartered or diced into about 3/4 inch cubes
1 cup frzn green beans
1 cup frzn corn
1 cup frzn peas
1 can of either stewed or diced tomatoes
a cup or two of good red wine.
Go ahead and spice it with whatever you like. I taste it to see if it needs any more salt or not, but I'll add more ground black pepper (I like alot!), 3 or 4 bay leaves, fresh chopped sage, fresh chopped oregano, fresh rosemary, fresh chopped parsley. You can use whatever you have and like. If you don't have fresh herbs you may use dry, but dry is stronger than fresh so don't go overboard. If you don't want to chop all those herbs, just tie some sprigs of them together and hang them down in the pot on the end of a string. Then remove when the stew is done.
Bring all this to a boil and then cover and slowly simmer for an hour or so until the stew is thick and the veggies are done. You may do this in a crock pot and stew all day if you like, But you have to sweat the first group of veggies, brown the meat, and add the flour in a sepatate pan and then deglaze before transfering into the crock pot.
One last note: This is an involved process, but it is well worth it. Also, you can mix and match some of the veggies if you like. I also like to put any leftover bacon I might have from breakfast in the pot.
Let me know how you like it.
McPat
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