I’m all about using my slow cooker whenever possible so that I can make my teacher life easier. The first two weeks of school, I used my slow cooker EVERY night. This week, I’ve kind of mixed it up a bit.

Over the weekend, I made Slow Cooker Bacon Ranch Chicken Salad. I just put it into the fridge and then made chicken salad sandwiches for dinner on Monday. They were SO good! My family loves chicken salad and they put this one in their top five!

Yesterday (Tuesday), I made those yummy Hawaiian Ham and Cheese Sliders that everybody and their Aunt Martha make! I didn’t get a picture at all because once they were cooked and cut, they were DEVOURED!

This morning, I loaded up the slow cooker with the ingredients for this masterpiece!

Last night, I sat at the breakfast table (because I was tired and didn’t feel like standing) and I cut a chuck roast into stew-meat-sized chunks. I also cut up a big Vidalia onion and I put them both into a big ZipLoc (yes, the same one!) and put it into the refrigerator.

This morning, I dumped that bag – and a large package of stew meat into the crock pot with all the other ingredients. Tonight, all I will have to do is make mashed potatoes and dinner is ready to go!

It is also a dreary, rainy day. Water is stubbornly refusing to swirl down the sewer drains and the hard earth – caused by months of drought conditions – won’t let water soak into it, so it is just standing everywhere! I had to take off my shoes and wade through the puddles and get to my classroom!

So a warm, hearty meal at the end of the day will be perfect!

Slow Cooker Steak Bites

Ingredients:

  • 3-5 pounds of meat
  • 1 large (softball-sized) Vidalia onion, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • 2 cups of beef broth
  • 1 stick of butter, cut into pieces

Directions:

  • Place meat into a slow cooker.
  • Add onion chunks.
  • Salt and pepper the meat well.
  • Pour in beef broth.
  • Add butter pieces.
  • Stir carefully.
  • Cook on low for 6-8 hours, stirring once or twice (if possible).
  • Serve warm over mashed potatoes.

Well Duh #1: You can use whatever cut of meat you find on sale. I happened to find a package of stew meat on “Manager’s Special.” I used that AND I cut a 2.5-pound chuck roast into stew-meat-sized pieces. This gave me a little over 5 pounds of meat. If you want to cut the recipe in half, go for it! We eat a lot. And we take leftovers as lunches!

Well Duh #2: If you can’t find Vidalia onions, bless your heart! No, seriously. Just use a big yellow onion. You’ll be fine.

Well Duh #3: Stirring this is NOT a game changer. Michael works from home, so I can ask him to stir it now and then. If he was out of town, the recipe would still work just fine!

Well Duh #4: If you’re feeling saucy, you can brown all of the meat chunks before putting them into the slow cooker. This will ensure a pretty brown color. As I have stated before, I’m lazy. And this would have been 4-5 batches of browning the chunks. So I just threw it all in and it will be fine! Cooked is cooked!

Well Duh #5: I’m serving this over mashed potatoes because I love making mashed potatoes. I’m pretty sure that Making Mashed Potatoes is one of my spiritual gifts. Or should be. I also will not turn up my nose at instant mashed potatoes. A little sour cream, a lot of butter – and you can really make those into something special! But I made the real deal tonight. Yukon gold potatoes, butter, cream, cream cheese (yes, I said cream cheese), salt and pepper. I don’t make them like this every time because…heart attack. But this is basically my Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. And they’re delicious!

Oh, boy! Did my tribe love this! Elizabeth isn’t a fan of most red meat, but she did like this. My meat and potato boys LOVED it!

In case you’re wondering, yes, it is very much like beef tips and gravy – without the gravy. It is delicious and hearty and filling and delicious!