Spicy Crock Pot Beef Stew

This is my recipe for spicy crock put beef stew, or as its called around here EPIC STEW!

Takes roughly 30 minutes of prep, and 8 hours plus of cooking time, in the biggest crock pot you own. The ingredient list all said and done will easily serve up to 6 people having multiple bowls each with some left over for the next day.

With that, onto the shopping list.

For those that dont want the step by step just go to the last step and a quick run down of everything you need and to do is there.

Here's what we're going to need to get started.

Ingredients

1 Package Beef Cubed for Stew (my store sells this stuff already chopped up and ready to go, if yours doesnt just grab any cheap cut of Beef and cube it up)

1 Package Sliced Sirloin for Stir Fry (once again my store sells this pre-sliced, if yours doesnt just buy yourself a petite steak or a small slice of sirloin)

1 Package Bacon ( I used the cheap stuff for this, but in the past I have splurged and gotten the really good thick cut stuff and it does make a difference in bacony flavor, so your choice better ingredients always make for a better product)

1 Red Onion

2 Cloves of Garlic

2 Jalapeno Peppers

2 Serrano Peppers

1 16 ounce bag of Frozen Peas

1 16 ounce bag of Frozen Green Beans

1 16 ounce bag of Corn

1 Small bag of Red Skinned Potatoes

Optional

1 Red and Green Bell Pepper (Red pepper is just for color, Green is for taste, but dont use to much cause it will completely over power everything else in the pot and thats not good)

Spices

Sea Salt

Chili Powder

Smoked Paprika

Parsley Flake

Cayenne Pepper

Red Pepper Flake

Ground Black Pepper

Flour

Now that you have everything we need, time to get slicing.

Cut your potatoes into 1/4ths fill up a colander about half way with cubed potatoes, run under water to rinse, leave skin on, i hear its good for you. Throw into pot

Slice the stem end off your Serrano and Jalapeno Peppers, cut lengthwise, then widthwise into small hunks. Leave seeds in

Cut your red onion in half, leave the root and stem ends attached. Slice in half across root and stem ends, then cut slits through the width of the onion across the face. Slice across the onion perpendicular to your slits and poof perfectly diced onion. Throw out stem and root ends.

Break open a garlic ball, usually I just twist it in half with my hands, and all the little garlic cloves will come out, but they still have the "shell" around them. Place them on the cutting board and lay your knife face across them, push down with the palm of your hand on the opposite side of the knife face (dont cut yourself) and crush the garlic clove, grab the husk and throw it away, dice the exposed garlic, toss in pot

Cut open your 3 bags of frozen vegetables

Throw everything into the pot, I try to keep the frozen parts separate, otherwise they're going to clump up into a giant frozen ball. Once everything is in the pot, give it a good stir to mix everything together with a wooden spoon

TURN POT ON TO LOW (its going to take awhile to warm up so might as well start now, also this will help getting everything up to temp by the time you finish browning all your meats)

Now in a small bowl mix the following

2 Tsp Sear Salt

2 Tsp Chili Powder

2 Tsp Smoked Paprika

1 Tsp Parsley Flake

2 Tsp Cayenne Pepper

1 Tsp Red Pepper Flake

2 Tsp Ground Black Pepper

Set aside, you're gonna use this in a minute.

Now I like to use two cutting boards, one for vegetables and the other for meat. Or you can just flip your cutting board over. But then you're going to have to clean your counter top. So your choice.

Get a large skillet, throw it on your range top, and leave it there for right now. Open up your package of bacon and cut it into strips width wise. Set aside

Open your package of Stew meat, use half of your prepped spice rub to season the meat, use your fingers get dirty and get it covering the meat, cube the Sirloin strips and do the same with the Sirloin strips with the other half of your spice mixture. Set both sets of cubed and spiced meat aside.

Turn your burner onto high, once up to temp fry bacon, break it up with the spoon as it cooks.

Once its fried, take it over to the crock pot, tilt the grease away from you, careful not to let it spill out the backside of the pan, and with your wooden spoon scrap the fried bacon into the crock pot, saving all the grease.

Return skillet to cook top, and throw in the cubed beef, straight into the grease, be careful not to splash grease around. Stir and brown the meat in the pan, we're just browning the meat so dont have to cook it like crazy, just enough to give it some color. Repeat process with this meat like you did with the bacon, saving the grease. Once that's done toss in the second batch of meat and brown. Depending on the size of your skillet pan you could throw both hunks of meat in at once. But you dont want to over crowd the pan, do them separately and it'll speed up your cook time.

Now that your second batch of cubed and spiced meat is done, throw EVERYTHING in the pan, grease and all. welcome to flavor town.

Now that everything is in the pot, ad 3 cups of water and give it a good stir.

keeping it on low, cover and wait 8 hours, or as I like to do sleep. I usually set this up the night before so its ready to go by noon on Sunday for football.

8 hours later everything is cooked, the meat has broken down into amazing melt in your mouth soft pieces of spiced goodness. The cloves of garlic have completely broken down and mixed into the stew, and your peppers and seeds have seasoned everything inside the pot.

But its a runny mess, its basically a soup at this point. So grab your bag of flour and add a table spoon of flour at a time, stir between each one to desired thickness.

Or you can do the same thing in a small cup with flour and water, its called a Roux, its just a way of thickening things, if you stir it well enough and spread out the flour as you sprinkle it into the pot you'll be fine with no clumps. Either way achieves the same result.

Turn your heat down to "keep warm" after at least 8 hours. Once everyone has had their fill, flip it off wait for it to cool down and stick that thing in the fridge, and have it for lunch the next day.

I hope you enjoyed my recipe for spicy beef stew.

Ingredients
1 Package Beef Cubed for Stew (my store sells this stuff already chopped up and ready to go, if yours doesnt just grab any cheap cut of Beef and cube it up)

1 Package Sliced Sirloin for Stir Fry (once again my store sells this pre-sliced, if yours doesnt just buy yourself a petite steak or a small slice of sirloin)

1 Package Bacon ( I used the cheap stuff for this, but in the past I have splurged and gotten the really good thick cut stuff and it does make a difference in bacony flavor, so your choice better ingredients always make for a better product)

1 Red Onion

2 Cloves of Garlic

2 Jalapeno Peppers 2 Serrano Peppers

1 16 ounce bag of Frozen Peas

1 16 ounce bag of Frozen Green Beans

1 16 ounce bag of Corn

1 Small bag of Red Skinned Potatoes Optional

1 Red and Green Bell Pepper

Spices

Sea Salt

Chili Powder

Smoked Paprika

Parsley Flake

Cayenne Pepper

Red Pepper Flake

Ground Black Pepper

Flour (used later for Roux)

Instructions

Mix all dry spices into a small bowl

Cube and dice all your vegetables, and throw in crock pot set to warm

Fry bacon in skillet, put bacon in pot over vegetables, save bacon grease

use half of your spice mix to season each package of beef, brown in bacon grease one package at a time, once the last package of beef is cooked in the grease, pour everything in pan, grease and all.

stir and wait 8 hours

use flour to thicken to desired stew consistency turn pot down to "keep warm" serve and enjoy.