Slow Cooker Beef with Sweet Peppers for Two

Like most people, Eric and I resolved to eat better/exercise more/yada yada yada this year as we usually do and we've done pretty well so far. But 6 weeks in, we've grown tired of the spinach salad with chicken every night.  Granted we had a crazy week last week, but we opted to eat out twice which was 2 more times than we had the entire 5 weeks prior. I came to the conclusion that I needed to add some new recipes to the rotation and pulled up my trusty old friend Pinterest. With the latest cold snap we've had I was craving some warm comfort food but without the major carb overload that usually comes with it and I managed to hit a home run on my first try.  I started with this recipe, but tweaked it based on our likes and what I had on hand already and came up with this gem of a dinner that got 2 thumbs up from Eric.

What you Need:

1 - 1.25 lbs beef stew meat

1.5 cups Italian sweet pepper, seeded and chopped into 1" pieces

1/2 medium sweet onion, sliced into chunks

2 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

2 cups water, divided

3 beef bullion cubes

1/2 - 1 tsp Sriracha sauce (depending on how spicy you want it)

2 tsp corn starch

How to Make It:

1. In a small sauce pan, dissolve bullion cubes in 1.5 cups of boiling water. Stir in Sriracha  and set aside. Note: I used about 1/2 tsp of Sriracha and ours was not spicy at all (and I am a complete wuss when it comes to spicy foods).

2. In a crock pot, layer meat, peppers, and onions.  Sprinkle with garlic, salt, and pepper. Pour bullion/Sriracha mixture over meat and veggies in crock pot.

3. Cook on low heat for 8.5 hours. Note: I put mine on when I left for work at 6:15am and didn't get back to it until about 5pm. I just set the timer on my crock pot and it turned out perfect.

4. In a small sauce pan mix remaining 1/2 cup of water with cornstarch. Add 1 cup of the juice from the crock pot and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Let boil for 2 minutes to thicken and pour sauce back into the crock pot.

5. Serve over rice or potatoes.

This stuff was so good.  We had maybe one serving leftover, so this is definitely a recipe just for 2, but you could easily add more meat and veggies if you need it to go a little further.

Enjoy!