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Food Fridays – Vegetable Beef Stew

Vegetable Beef Stew

1 lb Beef Stew Meat
5 carrots – sliced in rounds
2 green onions – sliced
4 stalks celery – sliced in 1/4 in pieces
5 leafs swiss chard – broken in small pieces
2 cups beef stock
2 Tbsp corn starch
Water

Place stew meat, carrots, green onions, celery, swiss chard, and beef stock in crock pot on low for 6 – 8 hours. About 30 minutes before serving, mix 1 cup water with the 2 Tbsp cornstarch and pour mixture into the crockpot. Stir well and let cook for about 30 minutes more or until slightly thickened.

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Potstickers

I decided to make potstickers the other day. I was greatly surprised at how easy they are to make!

I made about 50 of them for around $5 which is way cheaper than buying them frozen from the grocery store. I’m planning to make them again and freeze some for using in soup later.

I did purchase the wrappers but the rest I mixed up from scratch from a recipe from Food Network. I did make a few alterations but I think the original would be great as well! I used beef instead of pork, onions instead of scallions, and green peppers instead of red peppers because I happened to have these on hand already.

They tasted great in this dipping sauce!

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Progresso Recipe Starters Creamy Portabella Mushroom

Trying out Progresso Recipe Starters for my latest Bzz Campaign. I love food campaigns because I get to try out new food products for free! Who doesn’t like that?

Progresso has 5 new recipe starter sauces. Last night I tried out the Creamy Portabella Mushroom sauce and made one of my favorite meals, beef stroganoff.  I make a pretty good stroganoff from scratch. My usual recipe is more beef gravy tasting – since I start with the gravy- and progresso’s is more creamy but otherwise the flavors were pretty similar.

This Progresso sauce made a delicious stroganoff (my husband didn’t even notice that I made it different than usual), and it simplified the process just a little.

I’m not sure that I’ll make beef stroganoff this way all the time since this is a tad more expensive than my usual method but it’s great for a special occasion!

Progresso has some great recipe ideas on their website as well so I’m looking forward to trying out their other sauces and probably the mushroom sauce in a different recipe as well. Since I love mushrooms!

I bought the cheese sauce when I was at the store the other day so I’m going to try mac and cheese next. We all like our mac and cheese different ways and I have yet to find a mix or recipe that we all like. Maybe this will be the one 🙂

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Roasted Beef, Mushroom, and Barley Soup

I made this soup last fall and love it! I’d been thinking about making it again and when I found mushrooms and stew beef on sale today (no I did not use sirloin steak as the recipe calls for) I decided that I had to make this soup again.

The kids are napping, and I just finished eating a bowl, and it was just as good as I remembered it!

Unfortunately (or fortunately for me) my husband does not like mushrooms so I’m planning to freeze most of this in individual serving sizes so I can enjoy it for lunches throughout the winter.

I discovered roasted soups last year and I love them! Roasting the meat and mushrooms in the oven before you add the ingredients to the soup brings out a lot of  flavor. It adds a pan to wash but it’s definitely worth the extra dish.

Roasted Beef, Mushroom, and Barley Soup

1 lb Sirloin Steak (I used stew meat) cut into 1/2 in pieces
1 pound mushrooms cut into 1/2 in pieces
2T olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
4 C low-sodium chicken broth (I used beef broth – and it was not low sodium) or water
1/2 C quick-cooking barley
Handfull of chopped parsley

Heat oven to 425, toss meat, mushrooms, and oil in a roasting pan. Season with salt and pepper. Arrange in a single layer and roast until beef and mushrooms are browned, about 30 minutes.

Transfer to a medium pot and add broth, parsley, and barley. Bring to a boil and simmer until barley is soft, about 13 minutes.

Enjoy!