Beef Stew

Last week I made stew in the crock pot for dinner. I love coming home any night of the week after work with dinner waiting in the crock pot. I have started to pull out the crock pot to make life easier. I want to eat healthy, but I don't want to spend an hour fixing dinner. I am even more determined to rarely use a box or prepackaged freezer meal. I want to make our meals from ingredients I know exactly what I am adding to our meals. One item that is hard for me to give up is frozen pizzas. I know a lot of people do not like frozen pizza, but I do. I should start making my own and I might challenge myself to do so. 

Back to the stew! I had bought organic stew meat at Fresh & Easy on clearance for about $2 bucks. My father in law brought me 50 pounds of potatoes he got for free. I bought carrots at Costco for $3 for 10 pounds and we received some fennel in our organic veggie box. 

1 pound stew meat
3 carrots - chopped
5 small potatoes
2 whole tomatoes - we had frozen tomatoes from our garden last year in the freezer
2 bulbs of fennel
4 cups of broth

20 minutes before serving I made a flour and broth mix. I cooked this part on the stove, so it would thicken up. I used 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup broth. I brought it to a point, let it get thick and then added it to the stew. I made some garlic bread and served it with the stew. It was really yummy and filling.