Super Simple Beef Stew

This very simple recipe can be used as a guide to choose your own combo of vegetables and even flavours. You'll also need to adjust the quantities to suit the size of your casserole dish! We left out the butternut because everything was starting to overflow - there's no hard and fast rules with stew so make it your own...

INGREDIENTS

• Olive oil
• A knob of butter
• 1 onion, peeled and chopped
• A handful of fresh sage leaves
• 800g chuck steak, roughly chopped
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Flour to dust
• 2 parsnips, peeled and quartered
• 4 carrots, peeled and halved
• 1/2 a butternut squash, halved, deseeded and roughly diced
• 500g small potatoes
• 2 tablespoons tomato puree
• 1/2 a bottle of red wine
• 285ml beef or vegetable stock
• More water will need to be added during cooking

COOKING METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. Place a large casserole dish on the stove top or gas cooker and put a little oil and knob of butter in to melt.
3. Add your onion and sage and fry for 3-4mins.
4. Toss the chuck steak in a little seasoned flour then add to the pan and brown off lightly
5. Add in all the vegetables, tomato puree, wine and stock, and gently stir together.
6. Season generously with freshly ground black pepper and just a little salt, and bring to the boil.
7. Place the lid on top and transfer to your preheated oven until meat is tender - this may be 3-4hrs.
8. Check your casserole after 2hrs and 3hrs as you may need to add more water plus you can test a piece of meat to see it mashes easily with a fork.
9. Once cooked, you an turn the oven down to about 110C and hold it there until you're ready to eat.

Serve with fresh, warm bread and maybe a side of greens or just as is.

You can also make your leftover stew into individual pies the next day or serve on toast for lunches.