Beef & Butternut Slow-Cooker Stew - MAJOR yum

Beef & Butternut Stew
before the slow-cooking

Jane (my good friend and co-worker) told me about this really great food blog called Skinny Taste. My first introduction to her recipes were her crazy-good 2 ingredient bagels - you've gotta try them - sublime they are! And now on to her stew. Jane has made it and said it was just delicious - her family thought so too - so I decided to give it a try, even though I'm the only one in my family that likes butternut squash. (Didn't tell the hubs it was squash. Guess what? He ate it and LOVED it! Sneaky, that's me!) Skinny Taste's Gina Homolka wrote that she found the recipe in one of Giada de Laurdentiis' cookbooks (Giada's recipe here) and changed very little of it. 

The recipe calls for kabocha squash, which I couldn't find. It was suggested substituting butternut squash, which I did, and the lovely time-saving thing was that Stew Leonard's has containers of already peeled and cut up butternut squash! Time saver! 

Since we didn't start to make this until the afternoon, we ended up slow-cooking it on high for about 4 1/2 hours instead of the original on low for 8 hours. Can't imagine it would have been any better cooked the 8 hours! 

butter - used for sauteing

1 large sweet onion, large diced
2 cloves garlic or same amount of tube garlic
1++ T. fresh rosemary, chopped
1++ T. fresh thyme, chopped
2 T. or so flour
salt & pepper to taste
2 lbs. stew beef, trimmed and cut into 2" or so cubes
1/2++ C. Marsala wine
1 lb. butternut (or Kobucha) squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1" pieces
1 14.5 oz. can petite diced tomatoes
3 C. organic beef broth
2 T. fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish

*4 T. butter
*4 T. flour

crusty baguette
egg noodles 
baby peas

In a large skillet, heat some butter over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, rosemary and thyme and saute until onion is tender, about 6 minutes. Set aside in crock pot. Put flour, salt and pepper in a large bowl and mix. Add the beef and toss to coat. Saute beef in batches until browned on all sides, adding more butter as needed. Set beef aside in crock pot. Add Marsala and beef broth to skillet, being sure to scrape all the brown bits up from the bottom. Pour broth over the beef/onion mixture in crock pot and mix well. Add the can of tomatoes and the butternut squash pieces and gently mix again. Cover and cook on high for 4 - 5 hours, or low for 8 hours. 

*(This step is optional; we wanted a thicker gravy/sauce.) Heat the 4 T. butter in a small skillet and stir in the 4 T. flour. Stirring constantly, brown the mixture. When browned, stir by T.'s into the stew until you get the thickness you desire. (This wasn't part of the original recipe, but we decide we wanted a thicker ~gravy~ than the recipe gave produced.)

When done, you can throw a bag of baby peas in the crockpot (just before serving), stir and sprinkle the top with parsley. 

We served this over egg noodles and we threw the bag of peas in with the noodles (just before the noodles are drained) instead of in with the stew. Either way, it's delicious!

Heat the baguette.

Delicious!

~~~

YUM!

'till we feast again! 

xoabb