Tired after a party, it's so nice to come home to a warming stew

This is a really yummy meal, in my husband's words "the sauce is really tasty". I had bought some stewing beef on a freezer trip to our local butcher and because I knew that the meat would be good quality I wanted to keep it simple to let the flavour come through. I also knew that I would be going to a birthday party in the afternoon with my nearly 3 year old son and didn't want to be having to prepare and cook food when I got home. As it's the weekend, I was able to quickly prepare this after lunch and leave it in the bottom oven of the Aga cooking whilst we enjoyed a bouncy castle, party games and birthday cake. I also used it as an opportunity to make a portion for the freezer. We've both been really busy with work lately and the next month is just as busy, so having 'freezer meals' ready to go in the oven is proving a real blessing.  

As we were organised we managed to get to the supermarket relatively early for us and so when we got home had time to prepare some cheese scones. We mainly made these to enjoy with some shop bought tomato soup for lunch, but had a few left over and we really enjoyed eating them with the beef stew and using them to soak up the sauce. It does have alcohol in and if you are a non-drinker you could choose to leave it out. I don't drink alcohol but I do like to cook with it as I think it adds to the meal, particularly a stew such as this.  

Beef stew

Serves 4 (or 2 people and portion for 2 in the freezer) plus our toddler

1 tsp vegetable oil

20g butter

400g (less or more is ok) stewing beef

Ground black pepper

1 tbsp plain flour

1 large glass red wine

1 beef stock cube

1 onion

3 large carrots

300g baby new potatoes

2 dried bay leaves

Dried thyme

1 tbsp tomato paste

Splash Worcestershire sauce

1. Preheat the oven to 140C. Over a medium heat melt the butter and oil together. Add the meat and increase the heat. Meanwhile peel and chop the onion and carrot.
   
2. Once the meat has browned add the flour and black pepper and stir in. Next add the red wine. Turn down the heat to medium and cook the alcohol off. You can tell that this has happened when you smell the steam and can't smell the alcohol. Meanwhile set a nearly full kettle to boil.
   
3. Add all the remaining ingredients and enough boiling water to just cover everything. Stir gently and bring to the boil.
   
4. Once it has reached boiling, cover and place in the oven. I left mine cooking for over 4 hours in a low temperature oven, but if you are short(er) on time 1 to 2 hours would be ok.