Beef, cooked in red wine, with a touch of rosemary until it’s meltingly soft. Simple ingredients but flavours that are rich and deep… 

I’ve been meaning to post this recipe since before Christmas but I  kept making it and then eating it all before I remembered to take a photo! 

It’s one of those magical dishes which requires minimum preparation (if you can even call chucking all the ingredients into your slow cooker and giving them a quick stir, ‘preparation’) but which, when left for a few hours of gentle heating, transforms into something so special, so truly treatsome (yes, that’s a word!) that it both comforts and revives at the end of a wearisome day.

 If you’re still not convinced that you need to make this stew, then just do one last thing for me…  

Imagine yourself outside your front door.  It’s dark. It’s freezing. I mean freezing. You’ve been rushed off your feet all day and you think you can feel the first signs of a cold.  What’s worse, you can’t find your keys.  You’re scrabbling about in your bag but it’s too dark to see anything properly and your hands are so numb you can’t make your fingers work.  

After what feels like about an hour of bag scrabbling, you finally find the elusive keys and put them triumphantly into the lock. One quick turn and you’re in.  

Suddenly, the cold of the day is behind you.  The warmth of your home greets you like the welcoming smile of an old friend and the smell?  Well, the smell of tender beef, red wine and rosemary  fills your nostrils and drives out the tiredness, the cold and the problems of the day.

All that’s left to do is to grab yourself a bowl and greedily ladle it in.  Then settle into your favourite chair and with a big sigh, enjoy….

After more winter warmers?

Try these for size…

Chicken & Vegetable Broth

Winter Vegetable Soup

Slow Cooker Lamb Shanks