Recipe: Delicious slow cooked Beef in Red Wine

One of the boy’s favourite winter meals is a hearty beef in red wine stew, it’s something I’ve been cooking for years now, and since I got a slow cooker (or crock-pot) last year it’s been a regular in our weekly menus, something I can pretty quickly throw together the night before, or first thing in the morning and leave to gently bubble away in the slow cooker for the day. There is nothing better than coming home from a hard days work to find a hot and hearty meal ready to be served.

My recipe for beef in red wine is really flexible and pretty quick to put together. I usually use shin of beef or braising steak, these are both good for really long, slow cooking and are very tender once cooked, and so delicious my five year old makes short work of it.

beef in red wine

Slow cooked beef in red wine

Serves 6
A delicious and hearty beef stew, cooked slowly until the beef is tender. A perfect winter warmer!

Ingredients
1 bottle of red wine, I used Eisberg alcohol free wine
1400g Braising steak, in chunks
3 large carrots
3 parsnips
2 sticks of celery
8 shallots
1 stock cube
2 bay leaves
1 dessert spoon of tomato puree
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 tablespoons of plain flour
1 tablespoon of rapeseed oil (or similar)
Salt & pepper

Instructions
Add salt and pepper to the flour and toss the beef chunks in the seasoned flour and fry the beef in the oil (in batches) until browned. Set aside.

While the beef is cooking switch on the slow cooker and put it on high, add the bottle of red wine (less one glass) to the pot.

Chop the carrots, celery and parsnips into bitesize pieces and put into the slow cooker. Peel the shallots and add those to the slow cooker.

Once all the beef is browned put it in the slow cooker with the bay leaves, sugar, tomato puree, stock cube and some more seasoning.

Deglaze the pan with the glass of red wine and add that to the slow cooker too.

Leave the slow cooker on high for two hours, or until you need to leave the house; then turn it down to low. The stew can be eaten after 5 or 6 hours, but if you can cook it for a bit longer then that’s always going to be better.

Towards the end of the cooking I spoon out some of the liquid and mix it with any of the remaining seasoned flour and add that paste back into the pot, this helps to thicken the gravy.

When you’re nearly ready to eat, taste and check the seasoning, adding more if you think it needs it. Serve with buttery mash and vegetables.

Notes
You can easily change what vegetables you use, root vegetables are always lovely in this, it’s great with swede if you have some or even new potatoes. You could use large chunks of onion instead of shallot if you’d like. It’s very forgiving and very flexible.

This recipe for beef in red wine would work beautifully with my rich and creamy Fennel & Potato Gratin.

beef in red wine

Made with alcohol free Eisberg, this really helps to cut the calories down in this hearty stew. At just 36 calories a (125ml) glass (compared to an average of 158 calories for standard red wine). This wine is a great option for people counting their calories.

Recipe: Delicious slow cooked Beef in Red Wine

Meal Planning Monday w/c 2nd December 2013

I’ve long thought meal planning was the secret to making a little money go a bit further It also makes life infinitely easier for the person who stares puzzled into the fridge every evening trying to figure out what to feed the starving hordes. This week I’m taking part in Meal Planning Monday.

Our meal plans are slightly complicated by the fact I’m a vegetarian and the boys love meat, really love it. Often we’ll eat veggie food so we can eat the same thing as a family, but they quite often have meat which I really don’t mind cooking. Sometimes I just can’t be bothered, so they’ll have a lovely meat and two veg meal and I’ll have a bowl of cereal. I do like cereal.

We meal plan every week and have done for years, but here’s our Meal Planning Monday plan for the week…

Monday
Hodge has a work meeting quite late, so I’ll need to rustle up something which will happily sit and be re-heated when he gets in. I’m thinking (Nigel Slater’s) beef in beer stew, mash and kale from the garden.

Tuesday
It’s been ages since I made a risotto, so I’m fancying making an aubergine risotto. This is a huge favourite, so flavoursome and hearty, perfect for these cold winter nights.

Wednesday
I’m meeting a friend in town to have a mulled wine at the Christmas markets so the boys will have to fend for themselves. Tonight just screams spaghetti bolognaise. We batch cook things like this, so it’s just a case of grabbing a portion from the freezer and leaving them to it.

Thursday
Thursday is traditionally a busy day in the HPD house so I’ll likely assess what the leftovers situation is and we’ll take our pick from that. If that falls short, then we’ve always got eggs so it’ll be our old favourite scrambled eggs on toast or something along those lines.

Friday
Curry night! I’m going to knock up a quick and tasty pea and paneer curry. I serve it with fluffy boiled rice and toasted pita bread. Yum.

Saturday
We’re off out for dinner with some friends but young Splodge will still need feeding. Our quick & easy tea for him which is a guaranteed plate cleaner is pesto pasta, so that’s what he’ll have.

Sunday
We don’t often have a roast dinner; it’s not really worth it for just the three of us, but we picked up a cheap chicken from the whoopsie shelf a little while ago. It’s taking up valuable pre-Christmas freezer space. So we’ll be having a roast chicken dinner.

Meal Planning Monday w/c 2nd December 2013

So, that’s us for the week. It’s made me quite hungry writing it down properly and not on the back of an envelope for a change. What’re you having?