Cooking Light’s Beef & Potato Stew

This is from Cooking Light’s 2007 Annual Recipes, the best all around year for Cooking Light in my opinion.

It is very good – you can make it in a Dutch Oven (like All Clad or Le Creuset) or a Slow Cooker.  As you evaluate it compared to other stew recipes, remember it is a much lighter version than most at only 440 calories per serving including the bread!

Ingredients

• 16 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 cups chopped onion
• 3 pounds boneless chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 2 inch cubes, divided
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1 1/2 cups chopped carrot
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 1/4 cups water, divided
• 1 cup less-sodium beef broth
• 2 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 1/2 pounds peeled baking potatoes cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 tablespoon flour
• Chopped parsley (optional)
• 2 (8 oz) baguettes, each cut into 6 equal portions

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
2. Heat a large Dutch Oven over medium high heat.  Coat pan with cooking spray.  Add garlic, saute 1 minute or until garlic becomes fragrant.  Remove garlic from pan with slotted spoon, place in large bowl.
3. Coat pan with cooking spray.  Add onion, saute 3 minutes or until tender.  Add onion to garlic.
4. Coat pan with cooking spray.  Add half of beef to pan, saute 5 minutes or until browned on all sides.  Add browned beef and any accumulated juices to onion mixture.
5. Coat pan with cooking spray.  Add remaining beef to pan, saute 5 minutes or until browned on all sides.  Add beef and any accumulated juices to onion mixture.
6. Add wine to pan, bring to a boil, scraping pan (ideally with a wooden spoon or spatula) to loosen brown bits.  These brown bits have lots of flavor!
7. Add beef mixture back to pan.  Alternatively at this point you can put the beef mixture and deglazed pan juices (wine mixture) to a slow cooker set on 4 hour setting.
8. Stir in carrot, rosemary, salt, pepper and bay leaves (to either slow cooker or dutch oven – whichever you are using).
9. Stir in one cup water, broth and tomatoes.  Cover.
10. If using Dutch Oven, place it in 300 degree oven.
11. After 90 minutes, stir in the potatoes.  Combine 1/4 cup water with flour, stir with a whisk until smooth.  Stir flour mixture into stew.
12. Cover and cook another 90 minutes until beef is tender.
13. Discard bay leaves, sprinkle with parsley (optional), and serve with bread.

Yields 12 servings.