Beef Stew with Red Wine, Sharon Shiner's recipe done on the stovetop in a 5qt dutch oven

I know most people don't own a pressure cooker, or if they do they never use it, or don't know how to use it (probably the latter).  So I decided to test Sharon's recipe out on the stove top. Besides, as much as I love pressure cooking making a traditional braised stew on the stove or in the oven feels nice and "homey".  (But I do have to add that because it took a total of 2 + hours I chose not to go to my 8:00am yoga practice.  If I had done it in a PC I could have finished it with time to spare!)

I only changed it slightly.  I decided to use a whole roast instead of dicing into pieces because I wanted to be able to serve the meat in slices once it was finished.  And because I used a whole roast I also decided to do something I never do, which is to dredge the roast in flour before browning it because I wanted the end product to be a slightly thicker stew.

All of the ingredients were the same:

beef
mushrooms
onion
carrot
garlic
thyme
red wine
Pomi tomatoes (28oz)
parsnip
sweet potato

I tend to list ingredients in the order I use them which is why you see mushrooms listed after the beef.  I feel mushrooms should be browned on their own to prevent becoming, ironically, "mushy"!  So after I brown the roast and remove it from the pan I add more oil, brown the mushrooms, then simply move them to the side and, with a touch  more oil, add the onion and cook until translucent.

Add carrot, garlic, and thyme, deglaze the pot with red wine until the alcohol smell is gone. Add Romi tomatoes, oh, and I filled the empty box with water and added that before I put the browned meat back in the pot.  (salt to taste please!).  Add parsnips and bring the pot to boiling, turn down the heat to simmer and cook for about an hour.

Add in sweet potato and finish cooking for 30-60 minutes.  Sweet potatoes can get soggy so I added them in half way through the braise.

If you use stew meat that is cut up it will take about 30% less time.  Maybe 45 minutes before you add sweet potatoes, and another 30 minutes from that time (total 1 hr 15)

This was soooo delicious I decided to make another batch! I'm kinda like that, I like repitition (swings!). So when I cook a dish/meal that I've never cooked, or not cooked in a while, I'll do it a few times to get familiar with it again, and makes any changes I think will improve it for next time.

The changes I will make on Wed will be that I bought a slightly different cut of beef known as a 7-bone pot roast, only because I found one at Safeway....oh, and by the way, I chose to buy all of my ingredients at Safeway because I wouldn't want anybody to think that good food only comes from high end grocery stores.  And the other change I will make is I am going to leave the parsnips and sweet potatoes in very large chunks, at least 1 1/2 - 2 inch pieces.

One more thing....

Pomi tomatoes sold in 28oz box (around $3.99).  When I started taking cooking classes Pomi tomatoes were all the rage but I stopped using Pomi tomatoes over a decade ago after a trip to Italy.  Yes, Pomi tomatoes are a product of Italy, but most Italians use canned tomatoes, as I was shown by the host family I stayed and cooked with.  So, wanting to cook like a "real" Italian I've only used canned since.  Well, I gotta tell you, I really liked the Pomi tomatoes!  They are thicker, therefore no need to ever add tomato paste to thicken, and they are really sweet!  In fact so sweet I had to look at the ingredients to make sure there was no added sugar!  (there wasn't).  Pomi tomatoes was the only ingredient my Safeway did NOT carry fyi.

So there you have it!  No excuse not to make Sharon's Beef Stew with Red Wine!  So good I'm making it twice!  (or three times!)

PS More info on a "7-bone" beef roast:

http://homecooking.about.com/od/beef/f/7boneroast.htm