The tradition of Sunday Soup began 8 years ago B.C. (before child) when my house was a revolving door of guests. Chez Paquette opened for business every Friday evening as snowboarders and friends came over for drinks, food, and a floor to crash on, and it closed Sunday evening as those same snowboarders and friends headed home for another work week. I needed something easy and satisfying to feed anywhere from 2-10 cold and hungry people just coming off of the ski slopes before driving home. So, I would leave the mountain myself at noon (it actually was a good excuse to let my tired, unathletic legs rest) to create a new week's concoction.

All of those years later, the guests don't come by as regularly--who are we kidding? We all have kids now, and snowboarding has taken a back seat. However, I still make soup. In fact, Dave starts asking for Sunday Soup on the first cool day of the season. That day is today.

Today's soup: Hearty Beef Stew in the slow cooker
I made my broth from scratch this time. A few words on that topic: not sure it was worth the time, not pleased that I couldn't leave my house for 8 hours yesterday while it simmered, feeling good about being frugal and using the beef soup bone that I had in my freezer from the bulk meat purchase that we did this week (see next note).

Now a note about beef: last year, thanks to my mom, we started buying meat in bulk from a local farmer in Maine. I was skeptical at first, but after eating that first steak, it is quite obvious how much the quality is so different than what we would get at the grocery store. The cows are grass fed, Angus, and I will NEVER buy steak at the grocery store again. It's not overly pricey, especially if you can split a side of beef with someone. Well worth it and now my freezer is stocked!

Recipe:
2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teas. salt
1/2 teas. ground black pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 teas. paprika
1 teas. Worchestershire sauce
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 - 2 cups of beef broth (I use two)
3 potatoes, diced
4 carrots, sliced
1 stalk celery, chopped
(A note: the amount of veggies is totally up to your preference. I like more veggies in my soup, and I also adhere to the "that doesn't look like enough" rule. Veggies will produce their own water while cooking, so adjust the beef broth throughout the cooking. If you need more, go ahead and add it.)

1. Place meat in slow cooker. In a small bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and pepper; pour over meat, and stir ot coat meat with flour mixture. (A note: to really hold the juiciness of the meat, you may want to brown the meat coated in flour in a skillet with a little bit of oil before putting it in the slow cooker.)
Stir in the garlic, bay leaf, paprika, Worchester sauce, onion, beef broth, potatoes, carrots, and celery.

2. Cover, and cook on Low setting for 10-12 hours or on High setting for 4-6 (A note: I would recommend using a low setting. The flavors have longer to meld together and the meat doesn't cook as quickly.) About an hour before you are going to serve, check to see how thick the liquid is. If it is not thick enough for your taste (I find this recipe can be a bit watery), take some flour--3-4 tablespoons--and mix it with some cold water until it forms a paste. Add this flour mixture SLOWLY to the stew, stirring it in. The flour may form little "dumplings" in the stew which means that it cooked too quickly before the flour was able to disperse. This is not a huge deal. The flour that does disperse will help to thicken the liquid.
Enjoy!