Slow Cook Beef Barley Stew

We had a break from the summer heat last weekend (which was not something I was necessarily looking for) and I had the perfect opportunity to make a crock pot meal that I had on my "want to try" list.  The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a transition for both Taelin and I with her starting kindergarten, my work schedule changing accordingly and having dance two nights of week.  I have most afternoons off (YAY!) but two days a week Taelin has dance from essentially 3:30-6:00 once you add the driving time, etc.  This means even though we have time in the afternoon, the evening rush to get dinner on the table (that didn't come from a drive-thru) still exists sometimes.

So, I have been looking for a few new crock pot recipes that would be something I could put in when I get home at 1:00 and have ready when we pull in the driveway after dance.  Because I am not a huge fan of how chicken comes out in the crock pot and we bought a 1/4 beef, I have mostly been looking for beef recipes.  Let me just say, I found one of the easiest recipes ever and it was SO incredibly good.

I found the original recipe here, well actually I found it on Pinterest, but eventually was led to that blog post.  I didn't have everything exactly on-hand so I improvised a bit and came up with an amazing stew.  (They called it a soup, but it was far too thick to be called a soup.) Here's what I ended up doing....

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds of stew meat
1 cup barley
1 1/2 frozen pearl onions
1/2 bag of baby carrots, I didn't even bother chopping them...rebel, I know.
1 14 oz can of tomatoes
48 oz of beef stock
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon ground pepper

Directions (this is my favorite part about the recipe)

1. Put all the ingredients in the crock pot and mix.
2. Turn crock pot on high for 5 hours.
3. Stir once, half way through cooking time.

Seriously, that was it.  Freakin' bloody brilliant.

This recipe ended up making the biggest batch ever!  It was an unexpected surprise that I not only got dinner than night, but enough for two more meals that are tucked neatly away in my freezer for those days that I am less organized. I froze a one cup portion to see how it would do and I would say other than the carrots, it was just as amazing!.

Taelin and I made homemade biscuits, which were a great addition.  Taelin has also been flexing her dinner preparation muscles a bit more and has recently taken on chopping lettuce for salads.  It takes infinitely longer when she does it.  We either have really, really tiny pieces of lettuce (at the beginning of the chopping) or HUGE barely cut pieces (at the end when she is tired of chopping)...but a Taelin prepared salad along with the stew and biscuits was just perfect!