Kitchen Nook- Irish Beef Stew

It has gotten much chillier around here than I like lately.  I'm much more of a summer girl than...well anything else.  If it's below 75 degrees I'm usually chilly or cold.  So with the temperature dropping around here it started making me think of some fall type meals.  Fall and Winter foods are about the only good thing I find in the changing of seasons.

So this weekend I decided to make, what I thought, was a pretty awesome meal for this chilly weather!  Irish Beef Stew, Mashed Potatoes and Beer Bread.  It was amazing if I do say so myself.  So I thought I would share some of this awesome-ness with you all!

Irish Beef Stew!

Here is "The How To" in picture.  Also, please forgive my lack of camera skill!

First do your prep work.  

Chop up your carrots and dice your onion.

Mince 2 cloves of garlic.

My stew meat came cut up, but if your meat isn't you
should cut it into bite sized pieces now.

Next...

Brown the meat in Olive Oil.

Add Carrots, Onion and Garlic and spices.

Deglaze with beef broth.

Transfer to crock pot and let it go for 2-4 hrs!

 When you are ready to eat mix butter and flour together and add to the stew to get the broth more gravy like.  Also at this point add frozen peas!  I love peas.  So I added more than called for.

This meal was so simple!  I would really suggest it the next time you want to make some comfort food this fall or winter.  We ate ours over mashed potatoes and it was wonderful.  I'm sure you could dice up some potatoes and actually put it in the stew if you'd like.

Ingredients
Serves 4-6

2TBS olive oil
1lb stew meat
4 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste (I didn't put any in mine and didn't miss it)
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp rosemary
2 cup beef broth
2TBS butter
2TBS flour
heaping 1/3 cup frozen peas

 In large pot or deep skillet, brown meat in olive oil (4min).  Pour in onion, carrots, garlic and spices.  Cook for another 5 min.  Deglaze with beef broth.  At this point transfer to crock pot and let it go on high for 2-4 hours.
When you are ready to eat mix soften butter and flour until smooth.  Stir mixture into stew with frozen peas.  When gravy thickens slightly it's done!  Enjoy!

Up next :  Beer Bread