It's been a while since I’ve done a slow cooker recipe. So much so that I feel the need to extol the humble slow cooker’s virtues once more. To do so, I decided to time how long it took me to prepare lunch for the following three days, and this is a favorite recipe of mine whenever I need to use up whatever is kicking about in the fridge and cupboard.
The ingredients list is really whatever you have at hand, but what makes it a cowboy stew is the addition of cow, beans, and smoked sausage. I’d just taken delivery of a month's worth of grass fed beef, so I was good for cow. I also had half a smoked Kielbasa about to go out of date in the bottom of the fridge. Pinto or black beans would be more authentic, but I had butter beans so that’s what went in. (Don’t used baked beans).
Ingredients:
- 500g grass fed beef
- 200g (roughly) smoked sausage
- 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
- 1 large onion
- 1 carrot
- 1 tin of beans (not baked)
- 1 beef stock cube
- a good double handful of chopped celery
The method is simple:
- Chop it all up and put it in the slow cooker with the exception of the beans.
- Cook it on high for about three hours.
- After three hours, add the beans and cook for another hour.
Total hands-on time: 2 minutes and 47 seconds.
It took less than three minutes to make a high protein lunch for the next three days! It would take longer to walk to the canteen. If you haven’t invested the $50 in a slow cooker yet, what are you waiting for?
