Monday, November 12, 2012

Irish Beef Stew with... GUINNESS (or any other stout)


As you can see, I haven’t posted in quite some time… law school has gotten… busy, very very busy.  BUT we have certainly continued to cook.  And with fall, the crockpot is making regular appearances in our kitchen again.  I’m not going to lie, I bought a 6 pack of Guinness and drank 1, the rest were used in recipes throughout that week which hopefully I’ll get to posting all of them – they were honestly all scrumptioulicious!
The awesome thing about crockpot cooking, you can prepare these ahead of time over the weekend and freeze them until they’re ready for use.  But be forewarned – it takes 2 days in the fridge or a full day on the counter for these meals to defrost and be ready for cooking.  So there will have to be some thinking in advance if which “frozen meal” you would like to have for dinner tomorrow night.  But really, if that’s the only drawback – I can deal.
I will also admit, I drew my inspiration for my Guinness dishes from Fine Cooking… I will certainly not take credit for concocting these.. perhaps just modifying a little ;-)

Ingredients:

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 lb. boneless beef chuck, trimmed of excess fat, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 large carrots, cut into 1/4-inch-thick rounds
1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
3 large cloves garlic, minced
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 (12-oz.) bottle Guinness (or other stout)
4 cups lower-salt beef broth  (The original recipe only called for 1 cup.. I desired more of a stew and used 4 cups)
2 large russet potatoes (about 1-1/2 lb.), washed and cut into 1-inch cubes

Instructions:

Wait.. hold on… what I love about the crockpot….
1) THROW/TOSS/DUMP/POUR all ingredients into the crockpot
….OR Toss into gallon freezer ziploc bag and freeze
2) Set on high for 5 hours or low for 10 hours
3) When time is up, ladle into bowls and slurp up.
Right?  Can it get any easier for a delicious meal that meets your dietary needs and is WAY healthier than Taco Bell AND pretty much just as quick and effortless?

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