Recipe - Slow Cooked Beef Stew

As I've already mentioned, Autumn to me is the season of soups, stews and casseroles. Slow cookers become invaluable at this time of year. There's nothing better than the comfort of knowing that your dinner is bubbling away all day, waiting for you to get home, dish it up and tuck in. The beauty of slow cookers is that they are low energy, low effort and produce such flavoursome meals. Not only that but for some reason, anything slow cooked tastes even better the next day, eaten as leftovers!

I have two go-to stews for cold days - one is a beef and ale stew (recipe to come) which I cook in my normal oven and serve with fat little dumplings and this one - the slow cooker variety, no dumplings but a hearty, herby mix of melting beef and chunky vegetables in a red wine flavoured gravy.

It's versatile - add a bit of rosemary and garlic, change up the veg if you like. If you don't have a slow cooker just bung it in your normal oven at 160 degrees for about 4 hours

You will need

1 large onion
handful of sage leaves (or sprinkle of dry sage)
1 and half lbs stewing beef
2 tbsp plain flour to dust
salt and pepper
2 tbsp tomato puree
2 carrots
2 large potatoes
half a small swede
half a bottle of red wine
half a pint of beef stock (I use Knorr rich beef stockpot)
a bouquet garni
a large pan

Preheat your slow cooker on LOW

Chop your onion in half, then into wedges, then separate the layers. Fry gently in a large pan, in a little oil with the sage.

Put your flour into a large bowl and season with salt and pepper. Drop in your pieces of stewing beef and coat with the seasoned flour. Get your hands in there, it's fun!

Add the meat to the pan with all of the veg, tomato puree, wine and stock. Bring to the boil, then transfer to your slow cooker. Add the bouquet garni and cook for a minimum of three hours ... but basically as long as you like.

If the gravy is a bit thin for your liking at the end of cooking, remove some of the cooked veg, liquidise it then return to the pot and stir in to thicken

Eat from bowls with a warm crusty bread and a good red wine!

We get five dinners out of this recipe (but we're a pretty greedy pair) and it's even better the next day!

Let me know if you give it a try!