Slow Cooker Beef Stew

I made this Beef Stew a few nights ago. We had an appointment to see a house at 6:00 so I knew I wouldn't have time to make a dinner. I threw everything in the Crock-Pot that morning and when we came back dinner was ready. On a side note, the house was in terrible condition and the owner had no intention of making any repairs before renting it. We were only there a few minutes, it was that bad!

I got this recipe from my mom many years ago. I don't know where she got it but it always comes out fantastic. Rob requested that we add green beans next time. I thought about throwing some frozen peas we had in the freezer in but I knew Rob hates peas, so I didn't. I used five potatoes and I think that was too much, I also used less beef than the recipe called for (because Rob chose the meat at the grocery store) so my pictures don't fully depict what the recipe would look like if followed.

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

2 pounds beef stew meat
1/4 cup of flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika 
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons Kitchen Bouquet 
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4 carrots, cut into rounds
4 potatoes, cubed
1 onion, chopped
2 cups beef broth or 2 cups water plus to beef bullion cubes

Directions: Place meat in slow cooker. Mix flour, salt, pepper, and paprika together; sprinkle over meat. Add remaining ingredients, mix. Cook low for 6-8 hours. Remove bay leaf before serving (my slowe . Makes at least 6 servings. 

The photo quality sucks because I used my phone. Sorry

I didn't have Kitchen Bouquet on hand, so I searched the internet for a recipe. Basically this is what I did to substitute for the Kitchen Bouquet (which is a browning sauce used in soups and gravies, I didn't know that). The sauce I made didn't change the taste of the beef stew at all and I will probably just make the sauce in the future since we don't use it often and it's way cheaper to make it.

Browning Sauce Recipe:

1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup hot water
a few tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce

Directions: Cook 1/2 cup brown sugar over medium heat until sugar is melted and starts to darken. (I used dark brown sugar and cooked the sugar for about 10 minutes.) Remove from heat and add 1 cup hot water (my water wasn't hot enough and the sugar started to harden, I turned the stove back on and cooked the mixture on low for a few second and it all dissolved and mixed together fine). A few of the recipes I found said to leave the mixture alone at this point, let it cool and use it. Another few said to add two beef bullion cubes to the mixture. I did neither, I added about 20 shakes of Worcestershire Sauce to the mixture. I let it cool before adding what I needed for the beef stew recipe.