Today I’m super excited to welcome back one of my dearest friends, Tabatha, for day two of Dutch Oven Week! Guess what? Tab just started a Facebook page for her new blog, Kooper’s Coop, yesterday so please go give her a like.
The weather here has been cold and snowy – which is perfect for making a meal in my Le Creuset dutch oven. I received it as a gift for Christmas, and have used it almost once a week since then. Needless to say, I LOVE it!! Our favorites so far have included Chicken Noodle Soup, Potato Soup, Chili, and Artisan Bread. The hubby decided he wanted something different this time, so I opted to make Beef Stew.
The recipe that I followed is from Pioneer Woman. You can find the original Beef Stew with Beer recipe here: 
Here are the ingredients….. and my dutch oven.
One of the reasons that I love this recipe so much is that you can get a hearty beef stew without coating and browning the stew meat in flour first….and of course because it has BEER in it!
I always chop all of my veggies first when I cook, because it saves me time later, but the first thing that you want to do with this recipe is get the oil and butter going in the pan, salt and pepper the beef and then add it to the pan. Don’t cook it for too long, because it ail be cooking for another few hours once the other ingredients are in place.
This is after the beef was browned and out of the pot. Gotta love the aroma of onion and garlic!
After the onions were browned, I added 4 cups of beef broth. The original recipe called for water and bouillon cubes, or beef stock if you had it. I rarely use bouillon cubes, and ALWAYS use stock unless I don’t have it in my pantry. At this point I also added the beer, Worcestershire, and all of the other spices (pepper, sugar, paprika). I didn’t put more salt in because I salted the beef before I browned it. The original recipe also calls for tomato paste. I never use tomato paste, I always use ketchup in its place in recipes. Why, you ask? Mostly because it is an ingredient that I don’t have on hand, and because it gives an extra boost of flavor.
This is what it looked like before the ingredients were all mixed together and before the beef and veggies were put in to cook. Notice the frothy beer goodness? By this point everything also smells fantastic!
Notice how the beef is still a little pink? This is perfect because it will cook for another 2+ hours.
I put the beef back into the dutch oven, closed the lid and let it simmer for 1.5 hours.
After 1.5 hours I added the carrots and the potatoes. I peeled my potatoes because we don’t like the skin, but you could do it either way.
This is the before shot – with all of the liquid – it looks a little soupy at this point, but don’t worry, in another 45 minutes or so it will look like this:
The potatoes and carrots are nicely cooked, but the stew needs a little more liquid. The original recipe suggests adding about 2 cups of water,instead I added 2 more cups of beef stock. Why waste a flavor opportunity with just plain water?
Is your mouth watering yet?
I served it with this bread, also made in a dutch oven…and also DELICIOUS!
I love my dutch oven, and I haven’t made bread in it forever, so thanks for the inspiration! That stew looks perfect for this snowy weather.
I love mine too, Amy. I’ve never tried to make the bread that Tab does, but it sure looks yummy.
I got a Dutch Oven for Christmas, and I haven’t used it yet. I will be pinning this recipe and I am defenatly going to make it, although, I am going to use Venison instead of beef
I bet it would be great for venison! I hope you come back, I’m doing a different dutch oven recipe every day this week!
What can you substitute the beer for if you don’t have any?
You could use red wine or just add extra broth if you prefer not to use alcohol.