Moms Stew A Family Recipes

Steps:

• Pour in enough olive oil into a large stockpot to coat the bottom; add 1 onion, carrots, garlic, red pepper flakes, Greek seasoning, rosemary, thyme, basil, Italian seasoning, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Cook and stir onion mixture over medium heat until onion is softened and lightly browned, about 15 minutes.
• Pour diced tomatoes over onion mixture; add ground beef, breaking apart with a wooden spoon and stir. Bring liquid to a boil and cook until ground beef is cooked through and carrots are tender, about 10 minutes.
• Stir potatoes, remaining onion, and celery into tomato mixture and cook until potatoes are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove stockpot from heat and let sit, 20 to 30 minutes.

Steps:

• In a heavy plastic bag, combine flour, salt and pepper.
• In batches, add beef to flour mixture and toss to coat.
• Transfer to a plate.
• In a large nonstick skillet, heat half the oil over medium high heat.
• Cook beef in batches, adding more oil as needed, until browned all over.
• With a slotted spoon, transfer beef to a slow cooker.
• Add 1 cup stock to pan and stir to scrape up any brown bits.
• Transfer stock mixtures to slow cooker.
• Add carrots, potatoes, celery, onion, tomatoes (with juice) remaining stock, bay leaf, Worcestershire sauce and parsely; mix well to combine.
• Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours or on high for 4 to 6 hours until vegetables are tender and stew is bubbling.
• Remove bay leaf and discard.
• Add peas.
• Cover and cook on high 15 to 20 minutes longer or until slightly thickened and peas are heated through.
• Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Steps:

• Place cleaned chicken in a 6 quart soup pot and cover with water.
• Bring chicken to a boil, reduce heat to medium and slow boil for 1 hour to cook the chicken and create a chicken broth.
• Skim fat off the top and add more water if necessary to keep chicken covered.
• Remove chicken to a bowl and set aside to cool.
• Strain all of the fat out of the chicken broth.
• Mix the chicken base and water into the broth.
• Add onions, carrots, potatoes, pepper and parsley to the broth and bring it up to a slow boil for 30 minutes.
• While the veggies cook remove all the meat from the chicken and add it to the pot.
• Melt butter in the microwave for 40 seconds in a glass measuring cup.
• Add the flour to the butter and stir until smooth and creamy.
• Pour into the boiling soup and stir to mix.
• Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes to thicken and then serve.
• TinTN: You make a good point that sometimes it does not thicken, I think sometimes the potatoes have more starch than other times and that there may be more or less stock when you take out the chicken because I have that problem at times too. My solution -- I make another batch of the butter and flour and add some more until it thickens. Hope it helps!