Cozy Beef Stew

Total Time: 1 hr 25 mins Preparation Time: 25 mins Cook Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

• Servings: 20
• 3 lbs select steak
• flour
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 5 small carrots or 3 large carrots
• 1 medium turnip
• 1 large yellow onion
• 0.5 (12 ounce) bottle dark ( or are best, attention folks who don't cook with booze is not a necessary ingredie)
• 5 cups grain (i use a combination of millet, bulgar, buckwheat or barley...nice hearty grains that take a long tim)
• 1 gallon beef bouillon
• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• salt
• pepper
• thyme
• sage
• catsup
• 2 bay leaves

Recipe

• 1 cube the steak, removing the fat if you like a"leaner" meal.
• 2 chop the onion.i usually cut it into large chunks because the onion will sit in boiling water for a long time.
• 3 saute the onion in 1 tbs of butter.when it is done, dump it into the biggest stock pot you got.
• 4 while the onions cook, dredge the cubed meat in flour with a little salt, cracked pepper, sage and thyme in it.
• 5 fry the steak quickly in the rest of the butter.you want to brown the meat slightly on all sides.
• 6 this is when i add the .it adds some sugar, so if you don't want to add use some other sweetener.more carrots, or some molasses works well.
• 7 pour a gallon of beef boullion into the big old stock pot.(i use beef boullion paste with boiling water. you can use cubes, or cans.) add to the water 1 carrot.heat the water on high until it's boiling.
• 8 chop (into sizable pieces) the turnip, and carrots.
• 9 when the water boils, in go the veggies, some pepper, a couple of tablespoons of catsup, the can of tomatoes, thyme, bay leaves and the grain.
• 10 when the soup boils again, turn it down and let it simmer for at least an hour.
• 11 i like to add some freshly pressed garlic right before i serve it, not everyone does.
• 12 i also like to serve it with a crouton on top.(put the soup into oven proof bowls with a thick slice of hearty bread on top of each, w/ cheese on top. heat the bowls in the oven until the bread is toasted and the cheese is melty.).