Beef and Sausage Slow-Cooker Stew

When it gets chilly outside nothing beats throwing dinner together in a slow-cooker and letting it simmer away all day. It's such a relief to come home to a hot dinner that's filled the apartment with delicious smells and is ready when I am. We're trying to use the slow-cooker more, and part of that has been venturing out into stews. I'm not a huge fan of stew because I don't dig chunks of meat like that, but making it myself was a much better experience. I was able to trim the meat to my preferences, and I made sure to dice it into smaller bite sized pieces (rather than the huge chunks you often see--which, I'll admit, gross me out.)

This is the recipe that we used this week:

Beef and Sausage Slow-Cooker Stew:

Ingredients:

- 1/2 cup all purpose flour

- 2 TSP salt

- 1 TSP black pepper

- 3 lbs beef for stew

- 1 can diced tomatoes in juice, undrained

- 1/2 lb smoked sausage, diced

- 3 potatoes, peeled and diced

- 1 cup chopped leak

- 1 cup chopped onion

- 4 stalks of celery, diced

- 1/2 cup chicken broth

- 3 gloves of garlic, minced

- 1 TSP dried thyme

Directions:

1. Combine 1/2 cup flour, salt, pepper, and beef into sealed bag and shake to coat.

2. Place beef in slow cooker, and add remaining ingredients. Sir well and cover. Cook on low 8 to 12 hours, or on high 4 to 6 hours.

3. If stew is too liquidy before serving, add a TBSP of flour to stew and stir well. Simmer until stew thickens and serve!

This delicious stew will go perfectly with a nice big hunk of zucchini and cheese damper too! The meat was so tender it essentially fell apart in the stew making it almost more of a ragu than a stew and it was delicious.