Stew....it's so wonderful for so many reasons. First, you can make it with pretty much any type of meat and/or veggie that you like. Second, it's healthy! And third, you can throw it all in a slow cooker and it takes no effort, you definitely can't beat having dinner ready after a long (possibly cold) day at work! 

The stew recipe that I use is a family recipe that my dad created. Now, I know that a lot of our family recipes are either incomplete, because as I have said many times before, Italians leave ingredients out, or I am not at liberty to share the recipes because I have been sworn to secrecy. With that said, I have made this recipe many, many times, so I know that nothing is left out....and my family hasn't said anything about not sharing the recipe, so I am going to do it before they realize and stop me :) 

As I have said, you can change up this recipe any way you want to, by adding different meat, omitting the meat, or adding your favorite recipes. There are only 3 things that NEED to be done to get this recipe to turn out right, and they are pretty simply. The key to a good stew is adding a little bit of flour to thicken the sauce, Italian style stewed tomatoes, and Balsamic Vinegar. Don't try to add anymore liquid, because it is completely unnecessary, and in my 'professional' opinion, you may ruin my family recipe. :)

Ingredients:

Stew meat.... I have used both beef or deer. You can buy stew meat from your butcher so that its already in good size chunks, or you can buy a steak and do it yourself.

1/4 cup flour

About 3 oz Balsamic Vinegar

1 14 oz can of Italian Style Stewed Tomatoes

Mixed frozen Veggies 

1 Celery rib, finely chopped

1/2 of a small yellow onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 potato, peeled and chopped

1 bay leaf

1-2 garlic cloves, minced

Vegetable spray for coating the slow cooker  

Spray slow cooker with vegetable spray to coat and then add your meat. Sprinkle flour over meat and toss to coat. Then add in the rest of your ingredients. Turn slow cooker on low and cook for 8 hours, or high for 4-5 hours. You can then serve this over egg noodles, rice or some nice crusty bread.