Cast Iron Beef Stew

My wife (D) and I were watching TV and saw a cast iron Dutch oven with a grill plate for a lid, and we just had to have one.

The weather forecast was predicting colder weather for the weekend, and I wanted an excuse to bust it out and use it for the first time, so yes, this is the whole reason I announced the Cast Iron Cook-Off for this week.

We did use a recipe that I found online, but we typically use those as a base and do our own thing.

It started by adding 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of EVOO. I then added about 2 to 2.5 pounds of pre-sliced "beef stew" meat, and gave it a good coating of Willow Seasonings Salt, Pepper, and Garlic Rub.

Once the beef was browned on the outside, we sat it aside and used the grill lid to get some char on the outside of the cuts.

While the beef was browning, I diced a whole onion and sliced about 12 carrots.

It all went into the pot with an unmeasured amount of thyme, sage, parsley, a little rosemary and 2 bay leaves

It cooked that way for about 5 minutes.

When the 5 minutes were up, we added 2 cups of red wine, 2 cups of beef broth, 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, and 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, and cooked for 20 minutes.

After that 20 minutes, we strained a can of peas and threw them in, and then it went into the oven at 275 for 2 hours.

While it was cooking, we took some Jim and Nick's Cheddar Biscuit mix, put it in a cast iron pan, and cooked it like a cornbread.

When the 2 hours was up, the Beef Stew came out, and was delicious. It could have used a little more salt. When we added the other herbs, another sprinkle or two of the Willow Season I think would have really helped it out.

We will definitely be making more of this now that we have this Dutch oven and it's starting to get colder.