Bread and Butter Beef Stew

Last Wednesday, I did some more training at Bread and Butter Farm. I will be relief milking when one of the owners on maternity leave for a bit. She is still milking cows, however, at almost 9 months pregnant! But when the baby comes, I will be milking Mondays at Bread and Butter Farm. Their farm is a true Micro-dairy. They feed 100% grass to their extremely small Jersey heard.

On Wednesday, I was given a 4.55 lb bone in chuck roast for doing chores. This was the biggest piece of meat I have held in a while, I just started eating farm fresh meat no more than 6 months ago. But I can't say no to a beautiful piece of locally grown meat.

I decided to make a beef stew out of the meat. It was the most delicious meat dish I have made to date. Craig and I ate it for two days straight- breakfast, lunch and dinner it was that good! I also served it with 100% local homemade biscuits! YUM!

Bread and Butter Farm Beef Stew

• Approximately 2-3 pounds local beef chuck roast cut in cubes. I started with a 4.55 lb bone in chuck roast and removed the bone and some of the fat.
• 2 cups red wine. I used cabernet sauvignon 
• 4 cups chicken stock. A lot of the recipes I looked up called for beef stock. But I felt that a chicken stock gave enough flavor. Plus, I can get free range organic chicken stock from my local co-op, and it was on sale.
• 3-4 cloves of garlic chopped
• one large yellow onion chopped
• 8 sprigs fresh thyme tied together with cooking twine
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 large Yukon gold potatoes. I think red, fingerling, or russets would also make a great potato for this stew
• 2 large carrots
• 1 cup green peas
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbs butter
• local all purpose flour

Heat olive oil and butter in large skillet or soup pan until hot. Add cubed beef in one layer to skillet and brown on all sides. You may have to work in batches. Put browned beef on a plate and set aside when browned.

Add wine to skillet. Stir with wooden spoon until wine is hot and scrape browned bits of beef from pan. When wine gets hot, add chicken stock and browned meat and bring that to a boil. Then turn heat down so the mixture simmers for 20 minutes, uncovered, until mixture starts to thicken.

At this point, I put the mixture in a preheated slow cooker, so I could let it cook while I fished up some errands. You could also just start with a large soup pot, and let it cook in that the whole time. I let the mixture cook for two hours on low, covered, in a slow cooker, you could do the same on your stove top.

After two hours I preheated a large skillet with a tbs of olive oil. I then added the chopped onions, garlic, and carrot and cooked until soft and browned. I then added the cooked vegetables, thyme, bay leaves and the cubed potatoes to the slow cooker, turned it to high and let cook for an additional 1-2 hours- until vegetables are nice and soft. I cooked the vegetables first in a pan because I think the cooking of the vegetables gives it more flavor. I'm sure it would come out fine if using a slow cooker to just add the raw vegetables to the stew and let it go. Add defrosted green peas before serving!

I served it in a bowl with some homemade local busicuts. IT WAS SO DELICIOUS! Also, eating meat I exchanged for labor at the farm just tastes a little better!

Enjoy!