Maybe it was the cold weather. Or the fact that winter seems never-ending this year. But this weekend, I was in the mood for some beef stew.

We tried the recipe in "The Best Make-Ahead Recipe" cookbook, one of the many cookbooks we have from Cooks Illustrated. And I think pretty much everything we've made has been good.

I like this recipe because it doesn't require any pre-cooking of the meat, though it is required of some of the veggies. Still, it's easy and delicious and (depending on the size of your family) makes enough for lots of leftovers.

Slow-Cooker Beef Stew

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 medium onions, chopped
1/4 cup tomato paste
6 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press
Salt
1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 cups low-sodium beef broth
5 pounds of boneless beef chuck-eye roast cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons Minute tapioca
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 pounds red potatoes cut into 1-inch chunks
1 pounds carrots, cut into 1-inch chunks
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme leaves (don't use dry)
2 cups frozen peas, thawed
Black pepper

Saute the onions, tomato paste, garlic and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a skillet and cook until onions are soft and lightly browned (about 10 to 15 minutes). Stir in chicken broth, scraping up the browned bits.

Move the mixture to the slow cooker. Add the beef broth, meat, soy sauce, tapioca, bay leaves. Toss the potatoes, carrots, 1 teaspoon of the thyme and 1 tablespoon of oil together and season with salt and pepper. Wrap the veggies in a foil packet and set the packet on top of the stew in the slower cooker insert.

Cover and cook on low until the meat is tender - 9 to 11 hours. Or cook on high for 5 to 7 hours.

Transfer the veggie packet to a plate. Let the stew settle for a few minutes and then degrease as much fat as possible off the surface. Get rid of the bay leaves. Open the veggie packet and mix it into the stew.

Add the rest of the thyme and the peas and let stand until the peas are heated through - about five minutes.

My notes: This makes probably about four meals for my small family of two adults and a preschooler. I just took out enough for a meal for us and added peas to that batch.

The thyme plant in our yard died and I can't shell out $$$ for fresh thyme at the store. So we actually skipped the thyme, used dried thyme, my husband says, and it was still yummy. The husband actually did the heavy lifting on this.

After a couple of nights of eating the stew, we took out the potatoes and served it over rice.

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