"Secret" Guinness Stew

Ingredients:

• 1-1.5 trays of stewing beef, cut into half inch chunks.
• 1 gravy sachet
• 1-2-3 tablespoons of Bisto gravy granules to flavour the beef (DO NOT worry about thickness at this stage, you'll worry more after it's been stewing for a couple hours, THEN you can add stuff to thicken.)
• 2 tablespoons of wooster
• 2 tablespoons of soya
• 2 tablespoons of balsamic
• 2-4 carrots, cut into little 1/2 inch chunks or round circles, preference based.
• turnips- dice them into wee almost dissolvable bits, say 1 or 1/2 centimeter bits.
• 1-2 onions, same as turnips.
• leek, wee again like the onion/turnips
• celery, little bits too.
• shallots- leave chunky, or whole if they're small. They get so yummy and tender when just stewed whole, like a little treat.peas- optional.

Directions:

1. Put cut up beef into pot
2. Sprinkle with all the dry ingredients, ie. gravy, oxo cube, Bisto, stir so it adheres to beef.
3. Add wooster, soya, balsamic to pot, and leave at room temp in pot for an hour to get happy. Use this time to cut up your veg.
4. Add cut veg and can of Guinness.
5. Add 1 of the Oxo/Knorr beef broth cubes diluted in about a cup of boiling water. You want the liquid about 3/4-1 inch above the
ingredients * however, you want to keep the waterline at least 1 inch BELOW the top of the pot for boiling clearance.
6. Put in oven on a cookie sheet (chances are it'll boil over) at 350 for about 2.5 - 3
hours. Check on it now and then for a stir and taste.

Veg should be squashable with the back of a spoon against the side.
Extra Guinness: sub another can for the beef broth.

You can't really mess it up- if after cooking it hasn't thickened, dilute about 1/2-1 tablespoon of cornstarch into a couple tablespoons of COLD tap water, and THEN put it in (if you don't dilute in cold water, the hot temp. will lumpify the cornstarch, and then everyone will be able to tell you had to add cornstarch to thicken it and that you're a rubbish chef!)

Okay I've totally overthought this, you can't mess it up, just throw stuff in, as long as there's Guinness. You won't taste the Guinness per se, but it adds to the overall feel.

(makes 4 servings)   

Picture from Once A Chef.