Summer Slow Cooking - Swiss Steak Stew with Home Canned Tomatoes

Isn't Monday a great day to come home to a nice, delicious, one pot meal, already made for you?
If you don't have a personal chef (and who does, right?), then let your crockpot do the work. It just takes minutes in the morning to prep everything, and you are good to go!
Today's recipe -- I call Swiss Steak Stew. I actually combined traditional ingredients from Swiss steak and stew - so there you go!

I have a scrapbook recipe book I put together--I've added favorite recipe clippings with washi tape, written recipes into it, and now I actually use it a lot! With this particular recipe, I've made it so many times, I've tweaked the ingredients in order to use my home canned tomatoes which gives it such a great garden flavor! But you can also use canned stewed tomatoes from the store. You can use one or two cans, depending on the consistency you prefer.

Swiss Steak Stew
2 T. oil
1 to 1 1/2 lbs. beef stew meat
1/2 cup flour
4 potatoes, peeled and quartered
small bag baby carrots
1/2 large onion, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 pint jars canned tomatoes, chopped
1 12-oz. jar beef gravy
Coat steak with flour and brown in hot oil. Remove from skillet and drain. Place potatoes, carrots and onion in bottom of stoneware. Place steak on top of vegetables and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour tomatoes over meat. Cover and cook on low 6 to 8 hours or on high 4 to 5 hours.

The beef browns in no time at all because you're not cooking it all the way through. It will have plenty of time to cook in the slowcooker. I love cooking everything in ceramic pans now--totally hooked on them! You don't have the dangers of peeling teflon, yet they don't stick and clean up so easy. And...they're pretty! This is a Cuisinart ceramic pan.

The baby carrots are ready to go--so you only have to rough chop your potatoes, and chop a little onion. This is a nice, sweet Vedalia onion.

Then, everything goes right in, and the crockpot works on your dinner all day!

Garden delicious Swiss Steak Stew tonight!

Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch

Slow-Cooked Beef and Fresh Veggie Stew

A slow-cooked stew packed with fresh veggies is a great reason to get out the crockpot!

On Saturday we let this yummy stew slowcook all day, and simply added some wholegrain dinner rolls for a great family meal. I decided to keep the ingredients as fresh as possible and simple. Here's my recipe. You'll need your large (at least 6-quart) crockpot.

FRESH VEGGIE SLOW-COOKER STEW

3 cups fresh stew meat, cubed and browned

fresh baby carrots, about 2 to 4 cups (your taste)

7 or 8 fresh potatoes, peeled and rough chopped

about 2 cups freshly washed and cut greenbeans

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme (optional)

2 pint jars of canned tomatoes, chopped up (or 2 14-oz. cans stewed tomatoes if you can't get your hands on tomatoes canned in glass jars)

32 ounces beef broth

salt and pepper to taste

Brown the stew meat, drain any fat, and add to the crockpot along with the other vegetables, canned tomatoes and thyme. Pour the beef broth in, stir, and salt and pepper to taste. Let it cook on low for 5 to 7 hours and it will be bubbly and delicious. I have to say, this is one of the dishes that really makes it worthwhile to can your own garden or farmers' market tomatoes (when you're ready, check my blog for my canned tomato recipe). There is something about the sweet, fresh flavor of the tomatoes in a jar that makes the broth of this stew taste amazing. Using fresh vegetables makes it worthy of company!

I think next time I might have to break out my "Baking with Julia" cookbook and make some fabulous homemade bread to go with this wonderful stew. But, I was all about making life easy this weekend and had purchased some nice, fresh wholegrain dinner rolls when I did my shopping. Stew has quite a food history to go along with it (I love food history). People have survived on it for hundreds of years in many different ways--in the cold winters, stew helped make the most of the cellar's root vegetable supply. And of course, the Irish are famous for their stew. I felt a little food fame when I made this!

Really, there's nothing better than putting a meal together in the crockpot, and enjoying your day, knowing that dinner will be ready when you are! Eat happy!