Brad’s Beef Stew

• 2 lbs beef chuck stew meat cubed (precut in the meat department)
• 6-10 beef bones (precut in the meat department)
• Montreal Steak seasoning (McCormick in the spice section)
• 1/4 cup flour – King Arthur All-purpose gluten free
• 1 large yellow onion – peeled and quartered
• 5 cloves of garlic – peeled
• 64 oz beef broth (I like Pacific)
• 1 bottle red wine (something you would drink)*
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• thyme – 8 fresh sprigs
• rosemary – 4 fresh stems
• sage – 10 fresh leaves
• bay leaves – 2 fresh
• 1 lb large carrots – peeled and cut thick on the diagonal
• 12 – 15 small yukon gold potatoes – washed with skin left on
• whole portabella mushrooms – brushed clean with a paper towel and stems removed
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• olive oil – enough
• butter – 2 tbs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Bring the meat and bones to room temperature and pat dry with a paper towel.

Season flour with steak seasoning and lightly coat stew meat.**

Heat a Dutch oven, add olive oil and butter. Sauté beef bones on all sides until browned. Remove and set aside. Brown stew meat in 2 or 3 batches being careful not to overcrowd the Dutch oven.*** Add oil as needed while browning meat. Remove and set aside with browned bones.

Sauté onion and garlic. Return stew meat, bones, and liquid from the bowl back to the Dutch oven. Add beef broth, red wine, tomato paste and fresh herbs. Bring to a boil and then simmer 15 minutes, skim.

Transfer the Dutch oven, covered, to the preheated oven and cook for 1 hour.

Then add carrots, potatoes and brown sugar and cook for an additional 1 hour.

Add mushrooms and cook another hour (3 hours total). Discard the bay leaves, thyme sprigs and bones, making sure the marrow is left in the stew.

This stew is even better the next day. Reheat gently in the Dutch oven and serve.

*Costco sells an inexpensive (less than $9) wines that I keep stocked in the pantry for cooking.

**Put seasoned flour in a freezer bag and add stew meat and shake to lightly coat.

*** Crowding the meat lowers the pan temperature and leaves nowhere for the moisture from the meat to go when it hits the hot pan, causing the meat to steam instead of brown.