One Pot Beef Stew with Pumpkin Ale

I am working on some recipes I can make that Zara can eat too! This is a one pot recipe for a delicious beef stew. It does have some pumpkin ale in it but it is cooked for like 3-4 hours so the alcohol is gone and left is the delicious slow cooked pumpkin flavor! First I started with about 3 lbs of stew meat. You could just sprinkle it with flour but I took a large zip lock bag and put in like half a cup of flour and a big pinch of salt and some cracks of pepper. Dumped one lb of the meat in, closed the bag and shook it till coated.Shake off the exess flour and put piece by piece in a large Dutch oven coated with some oil and 2 tablespoons of butter at high heat. This is the most important step, patience to let the meat brown on each side. Take the time to get each side browned and put them on a plate to collect the juices while you do the rest of the meat in batches. It takes a little bit but is so worth it.

The flavor is in the brown bits on the bottom. Don't worry if it burns a little, it will braise in the liquid and flavor the whole broth deliciously!

Once done with all the meat lower the heat to medium low and add a whole chopped onion. A large one would be better but mine was kinda small.

Let the onion soften for a few minutes scraping the bottom while it cooks and add 6 cloves of garlic chopped for 2 more minutes.

After the garlic is smelling yummy add a can of tomato paste. I used a 6oz can. Stir the paste into the pan and onions to get cooking out the raw paste taste.

Cook for like 2 minutes.

Then add a bottle or can of beer. I used a bottle of the seasonal pumpkin ale to get into the season! I drank a couple swigs first!

Then add 6 cups of beef broth. I used low sodium beef broth.

Then add a tablespoon of worchesterchire sauce.

1 tsp of dried thyme.

Stir and make sure to scrape up all the brown bits on the bottom of the pot. Then add back the meat and all the delicious juices that collected on the plate. Put in the oven at 350° for 2 hours. 

After it braised for 2 hours I added 1 package of mushrooms sliced.

3 very large carrots sliced into half moons.

4 celery stalks sliced.

8 potatoes from a medly of red, white, and purple potatoes quartered. Mix.

Then put it back in the oven for at least an hour and I raised the temperature to 380°. I served dolloped with light sour cream. I only salted the meat cause I was serving this to Zara. I salted my bowl to taste! Delicious!