For the holidays, I arrange puff pastry pinwheels to resemble a spinach Christmas tree since they make a wonderful appetizer for any event. You can adjust the filling to your preferences.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 8 hrs |
| Total Time: | 8 hrs 20 mins |
| Servings: | 10 |
| Yield: | 10 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds cubed beef stew meat
- 2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with garlic
- 1 (12 ounce) can tomato-vegetable juice cocktail (such as V8®)
- 2 large potatoes, diced
- 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
- 1 cup sliced carrot
- ¾ cup barley
- ¾ cup chopped onion
- ¾ cup frozen green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
- ⅔ cup frozen whole kernel corn
- ½ cup chopped bell pepper
- ½ cup chopped celery
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley
- ¼ teaspoon ground thyme
- ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon dried marjoram
- ¼ teaspoon dried basil
- 2 beef bouillon cubes
- 2 bay leaves
- sea salt and ground black pepper to taste
- 2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
Instructions
- Combine beef, diced tomatoes with garlic, tomato-vegetable juice cocktail, potatoes, tomato sauce, carrot, barley, onion, green beans, corn, bell pepper, celery, Worcestershire sauce, parsley, thyme, oregano, marjoram, basil, beef bouillon cubes, bay leaves, sea salt, and black pepper in the crock of a large slow cooker.
- Cook on Low until the beef is tender, 7 to 8 hours. Add mushrooms and cook 1 hour more.
- This can also be cooked on High for 4 to 5 hours.
- I use 1 can of tomatoes with green chiles and garlic and 1 diced tomatoes with garlic, as my family likes this soup better with green chiles in it.
- I also use cheap steaks like chuck or even small 7-bone roast for this as well.
- I will use 2 cups of frozen peas and carrots instead of just carrots as well.
- In the fall time I’ll add a squash, parsnips, and turnips; you can add as much veggies as you desire to this as well.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 264 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 38 g |
| Cholesterol | 36 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 7 g |
| Protein | 19 g |
| Saturated Fat | 2 g |
| Sodium | 880 mg |
| Sugars | 9 g |
| Fat | 5 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
To shorten the time I used stew meat and cooked it in a pressure cooker with chicken broth and 2 boullion cubes for 40 minutes. While the meat was cooking I followed the recipe chopping the vegetables and sauteing them in vegetable oil along with the frozen vegetables in a dutch oven until tender. I added the remaining ingredients plus 2 additional boullion along with 2 cups water and 1 tbsp. browning sauce reducing heat to simmer. After stew meat completed cooking I drained the liquid into the dutch oven, chopped the meat to the dutch oven stiring thoroughly. I simmered all the incredients an additional 10 – 15 minutes. Total cook time 1 hour. It came came out perfect.
Making this for the second time as we speak. I added 4 cups of stock made with Better than Bullion. Added a few small diced potatoes, left out the corn, peppers and mushrooms. I made this on my stove with browning the beef, removed it, added the veggies to soften, the added the rest. The seasoning are spot on. It will simmer for an hour till the barley is cooked and the beef tender.
As others said, the recipe as is turns out like a stew. If I made it again, I would replace the tomato sauce with tomato juice. I cooked on low for 10 hrs and some of my cubed potatoes were a bit al dente. Would cook longer next time.
This was very flavorful compared to other beef stews that I have tried! I didn’t have V8 juice so I substituted with beef broth. I doubled the amount of liquid to 24 oz bc I wanted more liquid in the soup. I didn’t add mushrooms either and there was some liquid left but not a whole lot. Great recipe, thanks!
This turned out to be more of a stew than a soup, which I actually personally prefer, but if you want soup you will need to add more liquid. I made this as written, although the only tomatoes with garlic I could find were fire-roasted, but it still worked out well. This was great to leave in the crockpot all day Sunday while we worked outside and then come back in to a warm meal. I served it with Cheddar Cheese Muffins from this site. The leftovers re-heated well.
We liked all the fresh vegetables and the meat was flavorful. I did have to add 2 cups of beef broth because the barley soaked up the liquid even though it cooked for less time then required. ( 6 and 1/2 hours.) We also tried the spicy version and it was a bit too spicy for everyone in my family. I would definitely make the stew again. Next time, I will add 2 cups of beef broth and use just the tomatoes with the garlic.