Crock Pot Beef Stew

We're running through another stretch of wrestling practices that end at 5:30 and lacrosse games that start at 6:00 which leads to us walking into the house at 7:30.  Which means turning to our dinnertime saviour - the crockpot.

Filling up the crockpot before Snuggle Bunny arrives home from school means that I can look through his folder and help him with any homework, fix him an afterschool snack, play a game or read a book, head out to grab Whirling Dervish from practice, jet over to the lax game, watch the game, and walk in the door at home to a ready meal instead of trying to whip something up to feed the kids just before bed.

Yesterday I made a crock pot beef stew.  I used a london broil, but the magic of the crock pot is that you could put any cut of meat in there and it would end up tender and wonderful.  I peeled and chopped potatoes, carrots, parsnips, celery, an onion, and 2 cloves of garlic.  That all went into the crockpot.  You can saute the onion and garlic to take away some of the bite, but I didn't bother.

I added ground black pepper, some chili powder, 2 tbsps tapioca flour, 1/2 cup cider and a cup of red wine.  I'm a big believer in using wine that you enjoy drinking in your cooking.  Since the alcohol cooks off and all you're left with is flavor, why not use the good stuff?  For last night's stew I used a fantastic montepulciano that was made by one of Computer Genius's friends and coworker.

How great is that label?  And it's a great drinking wine, too.  He doesn't add a lot of sulfites to his wine so even CG can drink the reds.

I turned the crockpot to high and left it for a couple of hours.  Just before heading out to pick up WD, I added chopped mushrooms and cabbage to the crockpot.  I like to add more delicate things like cabbage at the halfway point so that they don't end up mush.

One minute after re-entering the house, dinner was dished up.

Thanks for popping in and checking out what's for dinner.  I'm linking this up to GlutenFree Homemaker's Gluten Free Wednesdays.