Mondays meals #12 .Braised balsamic beef stew.

Today is my Monday as I was on a days holidays yesterday ,hence the delay in posting my Mondays meals. I am still dipping my toe in and out of social media and adjusting to a life without my Mam. It is three months now since she passed away and as Christmas approaches I am finding it tough. She was an amazing cook and it’s something I really miss, coming in from school and sitting at the kitchen counter whilst she cooked dinner . It really is the simple things, like the smell of stew on a Wintery day or a big pot of rice pudding bubbling away on the hob which brings back memories that are very bittersweet right now. This is my little corner of the web where hopefully the kids will admit that their Mam wasn’t trying to poison them growing up ( as they would lead me to believe sometimes !) where they get my recipes from when they are old enough to cook full meals.

As the cold weather sets in we all tend to crave home comfort foods and what I call ,dinner dinners, you know the dinners you grew up with, meat, two veg and a form of carbs. My mother used to make a gorgeous Irish stew with skirts and kidneys growing up but I bet the twins would turn their noses up at the kidneys ,like I did, back as a child. So I have tweaked my own beef stew recipe over the years and as this braises for nearly two hours, the meat is soft and tender and perfect for little people to enjoy too.

The beauty of this beef stew is that you can be budget conscious and don’t need an expensive cut of meat for a delicious dinner. My preference would be to choose an as less fatty meat as possible so that it melts in the mouth and isn’t stringy.  This is also a good recipe for batch cooking and whilst I don’t do this in the slow cooker I imagine it would work quite well in one too.

 

Ingredients

400g of stewing beef or sirloin beef cut into chunks

2 carrots (chopped)

2 onions (sliced)

1 punnet of mushrooms (chopped)

3 cloves of garlic (chopped)

1 Beef stock pot ( I use the Knorr stockpots)

Worcestershire sauce ( be generous here, I like a good glug in my stew and use approximately 5 tablespoons)

Balsamic Vinegar ( 2 tablespoons)

Wholegrain mustard ( 1 tablespoon)

Mixed Italian herbs

Low salt gravy granules ( 1 tablespoon)

 

Method

And this is the best part! Add all ingredients to a large stewing pot mixed with boiling water (ensuring the contents are covered with water). Bring to the boil and simmer for approximately one and a half to two hours or until the beef is cooked and there is still enough liquid for dipping your bread into! You want to be able to break the beef with just a fork, to ensure it is melt in the mouth.

 

I serve this with creamy mashed potatoes for the kids and chunks of crusty bread for mopping up the delicious sauce. It also works well with this beautiful wholegrain quinoa ( which was cooked in a cup and a half of chicken stock to 150grams of quinoa).