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Joining me today is [Stroke Assoc].

[Stroke Assoc]: Hello everyone and hello Andrea. Beef can be a pricey ingredient right? Any alternatives?

Andrea: Well there are, vegetarian meat alternatives that you can use. Or you can use mushrooms as both a cheaper and vegetarian alternative.

If you want to reduce costs, but still use beef, you can reduce the amount of beef

and substitute the same weight in mushrooms. So

that could be another option.

The prep for this recipe

should take between 10-15 minutes. If you’re

using a slow cooker, the cooking time will be between 4 to 8 hours. On the hob, it will be more like an hour. We’re going to show you how to make this recipe in a slow cooker, but you can do this on the hob as well.

For this dish we have a bit veg in the form of onions, celery and carrots.

Then we have our beef and mushrooms

, and of course some herbs and other seasonings, so thyme, bay leaves,

Worcestershire sauce, tomato puree, low salt stock cubes

, and some rapeseed oil.

[Stroke Assoc]: The ingredients are listed in the video description below.

But if you haven’t got rapeseed oil could you just substitute for any other vegetable oil?

Andrea: Sure, you can use olive oil if you prefer.

The equipment we’ll be using today will be this slow cooker, a frying pan, some measuring spoons and jug, a knife for chopping, a chopping board and a wooden spoon or some other utensil for stirring.

[Stroke Assoc]: Could you tell me what functions you’ll be using on the slow cooker? There are so many models out there with fiddly buttons so it would be good to know what the basic settings we will need for this recipe.

Andrea: Of course. [Basic functions for temperature and timer if applicable].

[Stroke Assoc]: That’s really helpful to know. (To camera) We’ll pop some links to helpful information on using a slow cooker in the video description below.

Andrea: We’ll start with chopping the veg. So we’re going to chop up the onions, celery and carrots.

[Stroke Assoc]: We had a few questions from stroke

survivors during our planning stages about how to hold ingredients still while chopping. Can you recommend anything that might help?

Andrea: There are gadgets that can help with this. For example, this chopping board will hold an item still for you while you chop it up, which can be really helpful if you’ve got limited or no mobility in one hand. Alternatively, you can buy a lot of veg pre-chopped now, either fresh or frozen. Sometimes this is more expensive though, so not always the best option. Also, using the guillotine method to chop means you don’t have to lift the knife off the board each time.

Ok, back to our onions and things. You can chop these as rough or as fine as you like. It is up to you.

[Stroke Assoc]: We had a number of comments from stroke survivors

when we asked what challenges they faced in getting back into the kitchen and fatigue was one of the top challenges They said that they

wouldn’t be able to stand in the kitchen for long periods of time, what would you suggest?

Andrea: Taking a break in most recipes is fine, you just want to make sure you plan it so you aren’t taking a break when you’re in the middle of frying something, for example. That’s why a slow cooker is a good idea because you can just put your ingredients in the pot, set the timer and have a rest knowing it will stop cooking when the time is up.

If you are going to take a break after chopping these, I would recommend putting the celery and onions into one bowl or container. And then the carrots in another. It will make things easier when you come to cook these.

I like to cover carrots with water and pop them in the fridge. But I’d just pop a lid on the onion and celery. Just to keep them from drying out.

If you are using mushrooms or your beef isn’t pre-cut, this is a good time to cut that up as well. I prefer to do all of this at once, but you can always do this in stages the day before.

My beef is already in pieces and now our veg is chopped, so I’ll just move on to frying.

We’ll start by

heating our oil and adding the onions and celery to this.

[Stroke Assoc]: I notice that you’re measuring the oil, I admit that I normally just glug it into the pan.

Andrea: I think we’re all guilty of that. But by measuring it, you are making sure that you are using exactly as much as the recipe calls for and you know how much you can reduce it by if you think you are using too much.

You want to fry this on a low heat for about 5 minutes. Just until they start to soften.

Now we’ll add the carrots, some bay leaves and our thyme. You can use dried if you can’t get or don’t want to use fresh.

That will carry on frying for about 2 minutes just to release the flavour. When you’re done, tip everything into your big pot or slow cooker. Try to leave the oil in the frying pan if you can and hang on to

it. We’re going to use it in a little bit, so don’t wash it up yet.

If the pan is too heavy to lift, you can use a slotted spoon to scoop up the vegetables into the slow cooker. That way you still have the oil in the frying pan.

Now we can stir in the tomato puree and the Worcestershire sauce directly into the slow cooker as well. If you are looking to reduce how much salt you are eating, Worcestershire sauce is actually quite high in salt. We’re just using 1 teaspoon to get that richness in and 1 tsp is plenty for that.

If you need to take a break, this is another good point to do so. Just pop the lid on and don’t turn anything on.

When you’re ready to go on to the next step, you’ll pour 300ml of boiling water over this and stir it up. Then we season.

You can crumble half a stock cube to add a bit more richness.

[Stroke Assoc]: I hear stock cubes contain quite a bit of salt.

Andrea: Yes, stock cubes are really high in salt. I’m using a low sodium variety and adding some ground black pepper.

We’re going to now put the beef

and mushrooms into our frying pan, browning it in batches. Once each batch is done, we add it straight to our slow cooker

.

So now everything is ready to go. We just turn the

slow cooker on.

In your slow cooker, you can cook on low for 8-10 hours. Or on high for 4 hours.

If you’re cooking on the hob, make sure you cover it and bring it up to bubble first. Then stick with a relatively low heat for at least an hour. Make sure you come back to stir occasionally if you’re cooking on the hob.

With the slow cooker, we just switch it on and leave it.

If you do want to double this recipe, maybe if you’re having family over, you can do that without needing to change the cooking times at all.

And now we’re back. It’s been just over four hours and you can see how that sauce has thickened.

When you’re ready to serve,

I like to add a bit of fresh parsley and

then serve with a few slices of thick crusty bread. Or you can go with mash or just boiled potatoes. Whatever you feel like.

[Stroke Assoc]: That looks really good! Quite filling too. Is this something you can freeze and use at a later date?

Andrea: Of course. If you want to save this and freeze it for future meals, I would suggest putting it into your containers and leaving it to cool before freezing. When you’re ready to re-heat, pop it on the hob or in the microwave and heat it up slowly. You may need to add a touch of water to help it along.

After you freeze it, I would recommend using it within

2-3 months.

[Stroke Assoc]: And that’s our beef stew. Let us know in the comments if you’ve tried it out yourself or if you have any questions.

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