Hearty Beef Stew

I'm back! A couple Sundays ago I made a yummy beef stew. I have been looking for ways to use our beef. Every Christmas we get fresh beef from Brian's grandparents (they kill one of their cows and distribute the meat to all their children and grandchildren). We love it because it means we get lots of fresh meat! We haven't used our steaks at all because we don't have a grill and I don't know how to cook it without a grill. So if any of you have ideas on how to use my steak feel free to share!

So yeah, I was excited to use this stewing meat that has been sitting in the freezer and I didn't have a stew recipe so I just used the one on my Swanson broth can. It had great flavor and could use a couple changes that I will include.

Hearty Beef Stew

Ingredients:
1 lb. beef for stew, cut into 1" pieces
1 can (14 oz.) Beef broth (I ended up using more like 1 and 1/2 cans)
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves, crushed
1/8 tsp. ground black pepper
3 medium carrots, cut into 1" pieces (I used baby carrot cut in half)
2 medium potatoes
2 tbsp. flour
1/4 cup water

Directions:
Spray 6-qt. saucepot with cooking spray and heat over medium-high heat for 1 min. Add beef and cook until well browned, stirring often.
Stir broth, bay leaf, thyme and black pepper into saucepot. Heat to boil. Reduce heat to low. Cook covered for 1 hr. 30 min.
Add carrots and potatoes. Cover and cook 30 min. more or until veggies are tender. Stir flour and water in cup and stir into saucepot. Cook and stir until mixture boils and thickens. Discard bay leaf.

* When I went to add the veggies a ton of the liquid had boiled away and so I added a little more broth (I didn't think one can was going to be enough to start with). Also, the carrots took longer to cook than the potatoes so the potatoes ended up being slightly mushy and when I went to stir it, it kind of turned into more of a potato soup. So, I recommend putting the carrots in for a little bit before adding the potatoes and then watch until the potatoes are just cooked.

It was overall a very easy stew and was quite tasty.