I visit a local food shelf to supplement my food budget and I thought that I would try to highlight recipes that are frugal and use basic staples and items that I get from the food shelf to inspire others that are also finding a bit more time to cook or bake from scratch...ENJOY!
Today I used a 1 pound can of non-perishable beef in juices and turned it into a super yummy crockpot full of beef stew with homemade baking powder biscuits. The photo is below.
Beef Stew
This is what I started with:
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. beef for stew
- 3-4 small baking potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 3 carrots, peeled and sliced
- 1 small onion, peeled and diced
- 1 stalk celery, cleaned and sliced
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 32 oz. box Beef broth; divided
- 1 tsp. dried thyme
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- 2 tbs. red wine vinegar
- 3 oz. tomato paste
- 3 tbs. cornstarch
- sugar, salt, and pepper to taste
- With 2 tbs. cooking oil, carmelize onions in a large skillet. Brown stew meat.
- In a crockpot, add contents of skillet and remaining ingredients except for the corn starch and 1/2 cup of the beef broth.
- Cook, covered, for 4-6 hours on high until all is heated through and vegetables are soft, stirring occasionally.
- In a small dish mix the remaining beef broth and cornstarch. Stir in the cornstarch mixture into the stew to thicken.
- Remove lid and turn down the heat to low. Cook until stew thickens about 30 minutes to an hour more.
- Remove bay leaf.
- Bowl up and serve with fresh-made baking powder biscuits, butter, and honey.
Note* I used a can of processed cooked beef in juices. I had to drain the liquid and remove the fat.
