Stew

I recently got a crock pot. That is something my mom never had. In fact, I never had one either.

I love stew. I wasn't feeling real well a few days ago and I wanted to do something that would be easy, so I thought stew. My mom made such good stew, and as I recalled her dish, I started salivating.

I didn't have all the ingredients I needed to make my mom's recipe, but I had enough to make a stew of sorts. And, as I found out, throwing everything into the crock certainly made it so easy.

So, this recipe is for a crock pot, not a heavy cast iron pot. It seems to me, though, that basically it's the same principle for cooking such a meal

Ingredients: (My mother's)

Fennel, 1 bulb, cut up
1 Large onion, cut up
2 baking potatoes, peeled and cut up into small pieces
1-1/2 pound chuck steak or stew meat (which is very tough, so I don't buy it)
3 carrots, peeled and cut up into small pieces

Into the crock put the veggies, add salt and pepper to taste. Cover with water, add the meat -- which is cut into 1 inch cubes (or smaller). To this my mom often added 1/2 package of onion soup mix. The onion soup mix came out when I was about 6 or 7 and it certainly made the stew have a better taste.

I cooked this for 3 hours on high, then cut it back for 1 hour. If I had remembered early in the a.m. to get it started, I would have cooked it on low for 8 hours.

Anyway, I thickened the "juice" in the pot by taking 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of corn starch, mixed into a liquid, and then poured that into the stew and stirred.

Alan ate it, even asked for more, and had it again two days later and loved it then, too.

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