"Autumn" Beef Stew

I did a lot of freestyling with this recipe.

It's September 1st-- aka decorate for Halloween day. My man is under the weather as well, and I'm always down to make a comfort meal, so we're having a hearty, flavorful beef stew.

I opted for the Instant Pot since I couldn't get around to grocery shopping until around 4pm. I started with prep, as usual-- a small onion cut Julienne, some celery, a few potatoes. I threw in some baby carrots as well and seasoned all of the veggies with Kinders (sponsor me). 

For the stew meat, I seasoned heavily with Kinders again as well as Lawry's seasoned salt, then added a few pinches of flour to help it brown. 

here's how it should look.

Once the Instant Pot was set to saute and announced that it was "hot", I tossed in some olive oil and seared the meat, adding in a few cloves of minced garlic to cook. *Tip: spread the meat flat over the cooking surface and allow to brown, only sautéing once the meat no longer sticks to the pot.* 

partially seared meat.

I then decided to quickly deglaze the bottom of the pot with some red wine.

Next was the beef broth. I started with about half a 32oz carton (so like 2 cups) to cover the meat and garlic. It's VITAL to add plenty of liquid to ANY Instant Pot recipe because it is very prone to burning due to the quick cooking times. I eyeballed some tomato sauce-- maybe a cup-ish?-- as well as a packet of beef stew seasoning and gave it a nice stir. 

I threw in all of the prepared veggies and then poured in the rest of the beef broth. It *almost* covered all of the ingredients, which seemed to be enough based on my Instant Pot experience. And because I'm feeling fancy, I tossed in a couple sprigs of fresh thyme before locking the lid and turning on Pressure Cook for 35 minutes.

Not gonna lie-- I don't remember if I thickened it with a cornstarch slurry or not, but damn that stew was delicious. I garnished mine with a ~fancy~ grilled cheese with ingredients left over from my tomato soup night.