Simple Crock-Pot Stew and Dumplings

Stew is a staple in many houses up here in North Dakota. The temperature up here can get as low at -20 sometimes more. So when we make dinner or lunch we have to make something hearty to warm our bones. Simple and good stew does the trick. Everybody has their own recipe and here is mine, you can make it with dumplings so see my dumpling recipe for an even more tasty stew. Here is what you are going to need.

2 pounds of Stew Meat

1 Packet of Stew Meat (any brand)

Small bag of Baby Carrots

(Optional) Two Stocks of Celery

5 Medium Russet Potatoes

3 Cups of Water (or whatever your stew mix says you need)

1 TBLS of Vegetable Oil

3 TBLS of Flour

1 TBLS of Minced Onion

The first thing you want to do is cut up the celery and potato’s. Cut the Potato’s in cubes, you can chose how big or small you would like it. I prefer mines larger. Cut the celery into little bits.

The second thing your need to do and man its the hardest part of the whole recipe, so listen very carefully……Heat up 1 to 2 TBLS of oil in a frying pan on medium heat.

I know I know I said that this recipe was an easy one. But come on its only one step! I know you can power through this and move on to the next step. I Believe in you.

While the oil is heating up put the 3 TBLS of Flour in a bowl and cut up your stew meat into cubes(sizes vary).

Than coat your stew meat in the bowl of flour. Once the stew meat is coated, put it in the frying pan and Lightly brown the stew meat.

While browning the stew meat, Put Vegetable Oil, water (how much according to stew packet) , Potato, Celery, Carrots, Onion and Packet of Stew Mix in the crock-pot. Stir it up!

Add the meat to the Crock-Pot and stir. Cover and cook on medium heat for 6 hours.

You can add dumpling if you would like to add a little extra to your stew all you need is 2/3 Cups of Milk and 2 Cups of Bisquick. You can add some seasoning if you would like to spice it up a bit.

The first thing you should know is that you wait to add the dumplings until 30 minutes before stew is done. So, what you want to do is mix the Milk and Bisquick together and whatever seasoning you would like.

Than about 30 minutes before your stew is done, spoon your dumpling mix to your stew. They will expand a little bit. You can choose the size of the dumplings you want. I like big dumplings and I can not lie. Then cover and cook for 30 minutes, depending on how big your dumplings are, you might have to cook for 15-20 minutes more. In the photo below I left them in for an extra 15 minutes because like I said before I like big dumplings.

Then get ready to make your stomach happy! Spoon it up and YUM! YUM! YUM! I hope you love this recipe as much as I do! Its always wonderful to have on a cold winter day.