Slow Cooker Spanish Beef Stew

I don't know if this it authentic to any region of Spain, but it was tasty and hearty.

It is made in a slow cooker so this dish is also very convenient.  I just put everything in the crock pot and let it do its thing for a few hours.

The cold and dreary weather I am experiencing right now is perfect for hearty and warm stews like this one.  

I used an ingredient for this stew than I had never used before: sofrito.  I bought a jar at my local grocery store.  It wasn't hard to find at all.  I forgot to buy a can of tomatoes so I used tomato paste instead.  It worked. I doubled the recipe, but I will only share the recipe list for the regular sized batch of stew.

I found this Spanish beef stew recipe on allrecipes.com.  The ingredients are 1 pound beef stew meat, salt, pepper, 1/2 cup diced red onion, 2 minced garlic cloves, 2 cups chopped red potatoes, 8 ounces tomato paste, 1 12-ounce jar sofrito, and 1/2 cup pitted and halved green onions.

I cubed the beef stew meat and cooked it in a skillet over medium-high heat until the beef was browned.  I added salt and pepper  to the meat.

I added the browned beef into the crock pot.

I left the rendered far in the skillet.  I added the chopped red onion and garlic into the skillet.  I cooked the onion and garlic for five minutes over medium-high heat.  

While the onions cooked, I added the chopped potatoes, tomato paste, sofrito, and green onions to the crock pot.  I added the onions and garlic to the crock pot once they had softened for five minutes in the skillet.

 I stirred all the ingredients together in the crock pot.  I cooked the stew for about 4 and a half hours on low heat.

 This made a scrumptious and savory meal.

The meat was tender and succulent.  The potatoes were soft and had absorbed the flavor of the stew.

 The juice and some acidity and tartness as well as a little heat.  It was a flavorful stew.

The olives gave the stew some brininess and salt.  

It was a hearty and nourishing stew.  It was packed full of flavors.

The recipe was simple with accessible ingredients.  I would make it again.  It would like to try it with diced tomatoes instead of tomato paste, but it tasted wonderful exactly as I made it.