Beef Stew with Root Vegetables

I love a good beef stew on a cold day & there about a million recipes out there for it. I had some parsnips in the fridge so went on a search for a stew recipe that used root vegetables other than just carrots & potatoes. I probably could have come up with this myself but its always fun to search the web for things to try. I ended up using this recipe from Chocolate & Zucchini.

Since she is in Europe her quantities were in grams so they come out a little odd in pounds.

1 T olive oil
2 onions, peeled & sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled & minced
1.8 lbs boneless beef chuck cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1.3 lbs carrots, peeled & sliced
1.3 lbs parsnip, peeled & sliced
10 oz fingerling or new potatoes, scrubbed & sliced
salt & pepper
1 t cumin seeds
1 c red wine

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over med-high heat. Add the onions, garlic & 1 T water and cook for a few minutes until translucent. Add in the meat and cook for a few more minutes, browning the pieces on all sides. Remove the meat & set aside on a plate. Add in the carrots, parsnips & potatoes, season with salt, pepper & cumin, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.
Return the meat to the pot, sprinkle with salt & pepper, then pour in the red wine & 2 cups hot water. Bring to a light boil, cover & turn the heat to low. Simmer for 3 hours, stirring from time to time, & adding in more water if the juices evaporate too much. Serve immediately, or let cool, refrigerate and reheat the next day.

Serves 4.

I ended up buying a little over 2 pounds of meat so I upped the quantity on the vegetables to 1.5 lbs each. Then I added an extra cup of wine. We didn't have cumin seeds so I substituted 1/2 t of caraway seeds which had a lovely flavor. The three hours of cooking made the beef so tender. This sauce to this stew was a little soupier than I like which make be my fault for adding the extra wine. Matt liked the consistency of it & it was great soaked up with homemade Irish Potato Bread. With our extra quantities of ingredients we had a lot more than 4 servings. We ate a serving each for dinner, have had small lunch servings the last two days & have 4 more servings in the freezer so this one goes a long way.