Healthy Beef and Vegetable Stew

As the days get colder, it is nice to have a warm stew sometimes.  This recipe is healthy, inexpensive, and in my opinion, delicious.  Also all ingredients can be purchased at Aldi.  If you have never been there before, you really should check it out.  The have the absolute best prices on food.  And by the way, Do not be intimidated by the large number of steps in this instructable.  I tried to make it easy to understand.  I will also discuss the price of the ingrediants in the next step.

Even though the products in the pictures are not all from Aldi, all of the ingredients can be purchased there.  Here is a price breakdown on all the ingredients used:
- Ground Beef- $3.00
- Onion- $.40
- Celery- $1.30
- Carrots- $1.00
- Beans- $0.49
- Peas- $0.49
- Tomatoes- $0.49
- Green Beans- $0.49
- Corn- $0.49
- Pepper- price negligible
- Worcestershire Sauce- $0.25
Total Price:  $8.40
This is a big meal that can serve a family of four twice.

Here is what you will need:
1 lb. Fit & Active ground beef
1 onion- chopped
1 cup diced celery
1 cup sliced carrots
1 can Dakota's Pride beans- you pick which kind
1 can Happy Harvest Peas
1 can Happy Harvest Diced Tomatoes
1 can Happy Harvest Cut green beans
1 can Happy Harvest whole kernel corn
1 tbsp black pepper- to taste
2 tsp. Worcestershire Sauce
4 cups water

First, Chop up the onion.  My preferred method is to cut into quarters and slice from there. Make sure you have at least one cup of choppd onion.  More is fine, but less is not.  Next, chop up stalks of celery until you have one cup.  Pour the chopped onion and celery into a frying pan.  Then, chop up baby carrots until you have one cup.  Pour these into a large pot with four cups of water.  

Add one lb. of lean ground beef to the pan.  Turn on the heat and cook with the onion and celery until completely brown.  Meanwhile...

While the beef i cooking, add all of the cans, except the beans, to the pot.  Next, empty the can of beans into a strainer.  Rinse the beans off until they are clean.  Then, add them to the pot.  Finally, add 1 tbsp pepper and 2 tsp Worcestershire  Sauce to the pot.  Feel free to adjust the amount of pepper to your taste.  

Once the beef is finished cooking, add it to the pot.  

Stir the whole mix together, and set on medium heat on the stove.  Or, set the heat until the mixture barely boils.  Cook for 2 Hours.  It may seem like a long time, but this does not require a lot of maintenance.  While it is cooking, keep 2 cups of water nearby.  Slowly add this during the cooking.  

After 2 hours, wait for the stew to cool a bit and enjoy!  Mine made 10 servings.  Here is the nutritional data for each serving:
210 Calories
6 grams Total Fat
2.1 grams Saturated Fat
38.6 mg Cholesterol
418 mg Sodium
21.9 g Carbohydrates
5.7 g Fiber
7.5 g Sugars
16.7 g Protein

Enjoy!