Hey everyone and welcome back. Today is
crockot day. Yeah, it's that season and
we're in the middle of October, so we've
got to bring this one out. This is
French onion beef stew. All the flavors
that you love in a French onion soup in
a stew form. So, it's going to be a
thicker, more heartier recipe that you
can put over mashed potatoes or rice or
even pasta if you want to do that. And
then we have the crunchy French bread
slices, buttered up, toasted with some
guer cheese on top. And then I made
these delicious green beans, freshpicked
and sauteed down to Thomas's liking. All
right, you guys. Let's put this one
together.
We've got some stew meat here. This is 1
and 12 lbs. Now, if you don't have stew
meat, you can find a good roast. Just
chop that up into kind of bite-sized
pieces like they have here. Now, we are
going to sear these up before we put
them in the crock pot. So, you're just
going to grab a large deep skillet.
We're going to put that on a medium high
heat.
I want to get this going.
There we go. Almost on a high heat
because we really want to crisp up the
beef and give it nice texture and some
kind of crispy ends to them and then
lock in some seasoning to it.
All right, I'm going to do the grab
here.
One tablespoon of cooking oil.
Now, while we're letting that heat up,
we're going to add some butter. Not the
whole stick here. I just forgot to put
the butter in my dish that we cleaned
out.
So, there we go. And we'll add one
tablespoon of butter to the hot oil. Let
that get melted down.
There we go. One tablespoon.
All right, let's come over here to the
stew meat.
There we go. Now, I'm going to keep the
seasonings on the stew meat pretty
simple. We're going to grab some salt,
crack it right across the top of it,
and then we'll crack some black pepper
on top of it.
And we're going to place the stew meat
into our pan. Seasoning side down.
Here we go.
Hot. Let's do that.
You hear that sizzle? That's what you
want
for sure. All right. Seasoning side down
with our beef stew meat.
Going to break it up.
I'm going to let it cook for about 3
minutes
so it's nice and golden brown on the
bottom.
Probably some crispy bits to it also.
Now, while we're waiting for that to
happen,
grab the salt. Salted fat side here. And
some black pepper.
You always want to sear in some flavor.
Make sure you hang on to the rest of the
butter. We're going to need that at the
end of the recipe.
All right. Now, while you're waiting on
the beef stew to get nice and brown on
one side, we're going to take two very
large onions
and we're going to take off the ends.
in the outer layer. And I'm going to
show you what we're going to do next to
it.
Plow your knife through. These are large
yellow onions. Now, you can use like
medalia onions if you want to do that.
White onions, whatever you like to use
for your onions.
[Music]
You know, when you're making a French
onion soup, you have to have lots of
onions. And we're going to let the slow
cooker, the crock pot, do all the work
with softening down these onions and
giving lots of flavor and becoming kind
of caramelized. So, we're not going to
do that in a separate pot.
There we go.
All right, let's come back to our stew
meat. Look at that. Oh, yeah.
Let's start turning it around,
getting it brown on the other side.
We're going to get this side for a few
minutes and then we'll just keep
rotating it until it gets all nice and
brown and crispy on the ends of the beef
stew here.
Let's go slice up some onions. We're
going to keep these as whole as possible
to make nice rings.
So, I'm just going to take my knife,
turn the onion just on its side, and run
my knife through it. Just like that.
kind of like you're gonna make some
onion rings.
Just watch your hands. Have a nice grip
on it.
Yeah.
How's everybody doing today? Let me
know. Let everyone know. I hope it's a
great day.
It's a Sunday today and I'm starting off
early with this one so I can get it in
the crock pot and then just let it do
its thing.
and we'll enjoy it later. Now, what
we're going to do, just pop them out
like the little rings. Just like that.
We're going to layer these in the crock
pot. So,
we want these to be equal all over the
place.
There we go. Now, this step is optional.
If you want to just take your stew meat
and throw it into the crock pot during
that level, then that's totally fine.
You don't have to brown it up. What I'm
going to do is take some of this juice
out and really crisp up the beef. Just
take some paper towels and put it in
there.
Move it around. Let it absorb a lot of
that excess
liquid.
That way it's not stewing in the pan.
Two more minutes.
And while we're waiting for our meat to
finish cooking there, we're going to
take the lid off of our crock pot. Take
some cooking spray and spray the inside
of your crock pot.
All right, you guys. Doesn't that look
delicious?
Look at that. Little bite-sized
pieces of goodness there.
Let's start layering everything into the
crock pot. And I've got some delicious
stuff happening.
All right, the first thing we're going
to do is layer half of our onions into
the bottom of the crock pot. Kind of
make it the bed down there.
So that's almost like one large onion
down there. And then we're going to
place all the meat on top.
I'm just going to pick it up. Get the
rest on there. There we go. Make a nice
layer there.
Now, what we're going to do is add the
rest of the onions.
Right on top. Hide it. Hide it. Hide the
meat. Here we go, y'all. These are going
to dwindle down to nothing. So, don't
worry about that. Don't think you got
all these onions in there. They're going
to melt down.
You're going to need one packet of au
gravy by McCormick. This is 1 oz
package.
We're going to sprinkle it on top. Cover
those onions.
There we go.
All right. We're going to sprinkle in
one package of Liptin onion soup mix.
Flavor, flavor, flavor. There we go.
Lots of flavor. Well, well, well. One
can of French onion soup by Campbell.
This is a 10.5 oz size. You can use any
brand you want.
Just pour it right on top.
It's all going to melt together.
Half a can of water. dilute some of
those flavors. Get them down on in
there. Oh my gosh, I cannot wait for
this one, you guys.
All right,
let's move this off to the side for a
second. Remember the butter that I told
y'all to save, right? We're going to
make ps of butter from it
and place it all on top.
This will get in with those onions.
We'll do about five pats of butter.
Can y'all see that?
Mhm. All right. One more pat of butter
right there.
Yeah. It's a very rich dish. It's
Sunday. We're feeling good today. So,
it's going to go over some mashed
potatoes
and be served up with some green beans.
Let me get some of that off of there.
Here we go. Okay, we're going to place
the lid on. We're going to cook this for
about 3 to four hours on high or five to
six hours on low until that stew meat is
nice and tender. You can put a fork in
it and it just breaks apart. All the
onions are nice and caramelized down in
there and it's delicious. And then we're
going to finish it off with our guer
cheese. And then I'm going to serve it
up, like I said, with some mashed
potatoes, green beans, and that crusty,
buttery, toasted bread that's going to
have some extra grer cheese on top. You
know how you like it on top of a French
onion soup. Okay, you guys, I'll be
back. Okay, you guys, look at that.
Took 4 and 1/2 hours, and this is so
tender. Thomas tried a piece of the meat
and he said, "Oh, yeah, it is perfect."
Because this is reminiscent of a French
onion soup,
we've got some Swiss and gruer cheese
and we're going to put it all on top.
Now, this was an 6 oz package and I took
a little bit out of it for the bread
that we toasted in the oven. So, I'm
going to put this on top.
Woo! Just put it on there.
So, it's about 4 ounces.
And then what I'm going to do is put the
lid back on.
We're going to let that cheese melt. All
right, the cheese has melted. Got a
little bit of parsley on top for a bit
of color. Let's go in. I'm going to put
this over some mashed potatoes. Look at
that. Woo!
Look at this, you guys.
And we got that nice crusty bread.
Mhm.
And we've got the green beans that I
sauteed down for Thomas. And then he
made those lovely mashed potatoes. Let's
grab a fork. Going to give that a try.
All right. There's my bite. Onions and
all
and cheese.
That is like the kiss of beef stew
with French onion, y'all. Look at that
plate. That beef is so tender and so
flavorful and so delicious. Make sure
you pair that with some delicious mashed
potatoes.
Mhm.
Look at that bread. Nice and toasty.
Got the cheese on top. That grareer
Swiss cheese. Yeah, good for dipping.
Pour a lot of sauce on that. All right,
you guys. Thumbs up on this one.
Happy Croctober.
That means Crock Potter or slow cooker
recipes in the month of October. All
right, you guys. I'll see y'all on the
next episode. Bye.