Beef and Barley Stew

This was borne of one of those happy mistakes. I was making what I thought was a beef stew, but noticed that the recipe was missing one item - beef! That's when I noticed I had opened a vegetable barley recipe by mistake. I flipped back to the beef one, and added the beef along with the products necessary for a traditional beef stew. The result was so tasty, that I quickly wrote down what I had done. Here's the result. 

Ingredients: 

1 Tbs olive oil

3/4 cup chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup chopped celery

3/4 cup chopped carrots

1 pound boneless beef chuck, cut into 1/2 inch dice

1 cup quartered crimini mushrooms

2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary

2 tsp chopped fresh sage

2 tsp chopped fresh thyme

1 Tbs tomato paste

3-4 cups low sodium vegetable, chicken, or beef broth 

1 cup pearl barley

Directions: 

Heat oil in a dutch oven or heavy bottomed soup pan. Add the onion, garlic, celery, and carrots and cook for about 3 minutes, until the onion begins to turn translucent. Add the beef, along with the mushrooms and herbs and cook for several more minutes, stirring so that the beef chunks brown on all sides. Add the tomato paste, stirring to combine, then add 3 cups of the broth and the barley. Cover and cook for 1 hour. Stir occasionally, checking to make sure there is enough broth so that the stew doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. Add up to one additional cup of broth if needed. 

Serves 4

Stealthy Cooking Tip: Happy mistakes are so fortunate when they happen! The inedible mistakes are so unfortunate. Keep track of what makes your happy mistakes happy ... so that you can recreate them when you want.