fivebyevif

I don’t usually like beef stews, but I was paging through a November 2004 Cooking Light and found this one and oh, man, is it good.  It’s everything I always imagine beef stews to be, and almost never are.

I realize 12 garlic cloves sounds like a lot (Mom certainly thought so when I told her), but after five hours in a slow cooker the garlic doesn’t taste like garlic anymore.

Also note that after 2 hours in my slow cooker on high, this stew was more or less done.

In my version, I doubled the bay leaves, used my tomato-paste-in-a-tube, and home-grown carrots. I also used Charles Shaw merlot for the red wine, and it still turned out great.  So — give it a try, next time you’re stewing.