Beef And Vegetable Stew- in the Slow Cooker

Normally on Sunday, I do a Sunday Roast with either a pudding or an apple crumble, however with no oven, I have resorted to using my slow cooker... and it has not disappointed.

After 8 hours of waiting, and at least 3 hours of the delicious scents, we finally got to enjoy our dinner. Just about everything was eaten, well everything apart from the potatoes. Even Mr 1, who does not generally eat meat, ate the meat. Seriously it melted in my mouth, it was delicious.

Then as a bit of incentive for the boys, they had ice cream with sprinkles. So they got their hearty meaty and vegie meal as well as something to hit their sweet tooth.

BEEF AND VEGETABLE STEW

 Ingredients

1 Onion

1 Carrot

1 Parsnip

1 Swede or Turnip

2 Potatoes

1 Celery Stalk

100g Button Mushrooms

1kg Chuck Steak, fat removed and cut into 4cm chunks

2 Garlic Cloves, chopped

1 tsp Dried Oregano

400ml Beef Stock

2 tbsp Tomato Paste

60ml Red Wine

Method

1. Peel onion, carrot, parsnip, swede and potatoes and cut into 4cm chunks. Wipe mushrooms clean and slice in half.

2. Put Vegetables into slow cooker with beef. Scatter the garlic and oregano over.

3. In a bowl, mix together the stock, tomato paste, tomatoes and wine, then pour over the beef mixture.

4. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours, or until the meat and vegetables are tender.

5. Serve and enjoy :)

With our dinner, I served ours with some toasted Garlic Bread.

JELLY SLICE

So here it goes... my first recipe of many. As mentioned in my previous post, my inspiration is my broken oven and Sunday being my big bake day. The day I bake my cakes, cookies and even cupcakes for my sons school lunches, as well as our Sunday roast. So without my oven and slow cooker that is too small to fit my cake tins in, I felt a tad lost. Till I had a friend that suggested No Bake Slices. It was just out of luck that I had all the ingredients to make a Jelly Slice recipe that I found on www.kidspot.com.a

JELLY SLICE

Ingredients:

• 1 packet sweet plain biscuits (the only biscuits I had are butternut snap cookies)
• 175g unsalted butter
• 400g sweet condensed milk
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon gelatine
• 1 packet of jelly

  

  A 5 ingredient recipe, and these are the main things I always keep in my cupboard, however generally I use the Jelly when I make Custard, and the biscuits and condensed milk are perfect in chocolate balls. Then there is butter, which is used in most recipes. I will say this..... this is the first time i have used gelatine.

  
  
  
  

Method:

Butter a slice tray (16cm x 26cm x 3cm). 

Dissolve jelly in 1 and 1/2 cups boiling water, place in fridge for about 45 minutes until cool.

Crush biscuits in a food processor (or in a plastic bag with a rolling pin). transfer to a bowl and mix in melted butter.

Place mixture in prepared tray and press down firmly. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Dissolve gelatine in 1/2 cup hot water. Combine gelatine mixture with condensed milk in a bowl, pour over biscuit base and place back in fridge for 30 minutes until cool and nearly set.

Pour cold jelly on top of slice and return to fridge to set.

Slice into squares using a butter knife. I wiped the knife occasionally so that the white filling didn't ruin the look of the jelly.

The final result... YUMMMMMY... my older two were hanging around me while I was attempting to cut the slice, which was not the easiest of things to do. I used a butter knife to cut and a spoon to remove off the tray.