On Thursday, C and I hit Costco (check it out here for Costco Pot Pie feast) to basically prepare for the upcoming snowpocalypse. If you haven’t heard, Ohio was supposed to be hit with a bunch of snow. At the end of our Costco trip, I felt like we literally shopped the entire Costco (obvs NOT true), all in the name of said snowpocalypse.
I have planned to make some Beef Stew for sometime, while drawing inspiration from Russian Sato’s Oogui video. Mine was definitely not 16 L, nor was it nearly accurate to the Castle in The Sky vers of stew. It is, however, a damn good Beef Stew.
I started with Costco size stew meat. Wasn’t sure how many pounds, but probably around 8 – 10 lbs or more? A lot.. that’s all I know. I cut the meat into large chucks and dredge them with my seasoned flour dredgery. I seasoned the flour with salt, black pepper, cayenne, paprika (for color), and onion powder.
No natural light this time… it’s SUPER cloudy…
The meat then browned on both side, and I did this is in like 5 batches. On the upside, it was so warm that our heater didn’t have to work that hard for a while.
Check out that Le Creuset… eekkk ❤
Browned meat!!
While the meat were browning, I roughed chopped three large onions and a big handful of garlic (honestly about 10 – 15 cloves of garlic). Actually I just crushed the garlic to release the flavor, It will be cooked with the meat for so long that it’ll disintegrate within the stew anyway. When all the meat were all browned, I then pulled them out and put them in a separate container.
DO NOT clean your pot… I REPEAT… DO NOT clean your pot, you want all that brown bits, also called fond. I put a bit more of olive oil then dumped all the onions and garlic then I deglazed the pan with first a cup or so of red wine. I have Malbec, so that’s what I used.
… and yes, I might have tasted some of them.. FOR SCIENCE!
Pretty good too, this Malbec… humm should have “tasted” more. Anyhow this is what it looks now. 
I cooked the onions and garlic for around a minute and then dropped all the beef into the pot, stirred them a bit. At this point, it was quite difficult to stir since THERE WAS TOO MUCH STUFF IN THIS POT! Not that am complaining tbh. I then poured the REST of that wine in the bottle, then covered to bring the whole thing to a boil. I also added a sprig of fresh Rosemary, but I HIGHLY suggest you use thyme instead. I think it’ll be much tastier with thyme. Unfortunately for me… I did not have any on hand.
Once the pot boiled, I lowered the heat to about simmer then set the timer for 90 minutes. Realistically the whole shebang should be let simmer for about 2,5 to 3 hours. I came back after 1,5 hours so that I can continue on to the side dishes.
Oh yes my friends…. I was on a cooking frenzy tonight.
After a couple of episodes of criminal minds, I came back and prepared for the veggies to put on the stew as well as the side dishes. Can’t have the stew on it’s own ya know. BUT this will be in a separate post.. otherwise this post will be never end….. Check out my Mushroom Rissoto and Broccoli Sauteed.
Anyhow, I proceeded into a chopping frenzy (not unlike the game). Veggies for stew: mushrooms. quartered about 3 cups worth of shrooms, 5 small tomatoes quartered, roughly cut 4 medium size carrots, diced one extra onion (can you tell that we grabbed the big bag of onions from Costco), and two extra cloves of garlic.
I dropped the mushrooms, tomatoes, onions and garlic immediately, and added 60 more minutes into the timer. I did, however, reserve the carrots until about 35 minutes before your timer is up so that it will not disintegrate into the stew. The rest was quite easy. I adjusted the seasonings when the hour is up and carrots are soft. I added a tablespoon of honey and several sloshes of Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. I also added about a handful of frozen green peas one minute before my timer beeped.
Check out this beauty!!!!!
So that’s it, the beef stew is DONE!
This Beef Stew is sooo good! Tender meat (I think at this point it’s been simmering close to 3.5 hours) and the flour dredging at the beginning totally thicken up the soupy portion. SO SUPER GOOD! 
Also, still in love with my Le Creuset :D.
Anyhow, that’s it for the main dish for this snowpocalypse guys. BUT I’m not done yet. I also made Mushroom Risotto and Sauteed Broccoli.
Plated!
UGHHH.. soo good!
XO – T
Share this:
