It's Saturday and it's winter - load up the slow cooker

Mmmmm, winter casserole. Not made in a LeCreuset, but I didn't take a picture of dinner before we gobbled it up and my Kambrook slow-cooker is not as charming to photograph as this little beauty:

Photo by WordRidden at Flickr Creative Commons

Anyway, here is a delicious and easy meal suitable for a winter weekend - no skill required.

The Working Through It Slow-Cooked Winter Beef Casserole

Ingredients:

• Beef - lots - cubed (I used a thick hunk of some kind of steak that my husband had bought from a market, so can't say what cut it was, but blade or chuck steak is fine for slow-cooking)
• Olive oil
• 1 stock cube - any kind (I used vegetable stock because that's what I had)
• Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp mustard - any kind (I used MasterFoods Australian mustard which is mild, a bit spicy, a bit sweet - something like a cross between Amercian and Dijon mustard)
• 2 large onions, diced
• 3 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1 punnet of button mushrooms
• 1 tsp mixed herbs
• A little salt and cracked pepper

Method:

Turn on the slow cooker to Low.
Dice the onion finely and place in the slow cooker.
In a separate pan, brown the meat in a little olive oil, just long enough to colour all sides, then lift out the pieces with a slotted spoon and place them in the slow cooker.
To the liquid left over in the pan, add a generous splash of Worcestershire sauce, the mustard, the stock cube and about half a cup of hot water. Mix together, dissolve the stock and then pour it all into the slow cooker.
Chop the carrot, wipe off the mushrooms and place all in the slow cooker; sprinkle over the herbs and a little salt, and add a couple of twists of cracked pepper.
Mix everything gently, put on the lid and leave to cook on low for 4-5 hours.

When it's cooked, the beef will be flakey and very tender, and the whole thing is swimming in a thin gravy that is lovely to dip a bread roll in as well. (That's how we get our kids to eat casserole - if they nibble two pieces of meat, a little veg and rice and then gobble two giant bread rolls dipped in the gravy, that's a success story in our book).

Serve with mashed potato or rice, bread rolls, and a bowl of steamed veg if you like (I did broccoli and cauliflower). Place all on the table, give each family member a bowl, and hope for the best.

Delicioso!