I've never made one that tastes really good...so recipes please. I have the following ingredients.
Stewing beef
Carrots
Red Onions
Potatoes
A tin of tomatoes
Parsley
Bay leaf
stock....
and Mushrooms.
Also other spices etc...garlic powder  pepper salt etc...

Help...:-)

Red onions are better in a salad than in a stew, shallots work better in your dish. Also you could try a good hit of  balsamic vinegar in the stew, really brings it to life.

I made a beef stew yesterday in the slow cooker, first one of the winter :-)  Took 15 mins to prepare, chuck in SC and 5hrs later it was ready to eat.

I used;

Casserole beef, tossed in flour, browned and chucked in SC
2 decent sized carrots
Some mushrooms
mushroom ketchup
shallots
a good slug of red wine
oxo

I just generally use what I have lying around but, even if I admit it myself, this was tasty. :-)

I think it's a good idea to brown the meat first then cook slowly. Wine, balsamic vinegar or Worcester sauce add good flavour and I sometimes use the extra rich knorr cook pot stock (sort of jelly form).
I did try a recipe that involved guiness but 5 of us thought it was vile so give that a miss.

Stew always tastes better the second day.My mum always put a marrow bone in when Iwas a child but doesn't bother now.I use
Stewing steak/skirt
potatoes
carrots
swede
onions - not red
leek
parsnip
mushrooms
a couple of stock cubes plenty of pepper and salt to taste.
I chop the veggies up and meat up and ideally simmer them for a couple of hours the night before on a low heat.The next day i put them back on and simmer throughout the day on a low heat.I add cornflour added to a little water to make a paste to thicken at the end of the cooking time.Add home made dumplings and serve.Best stews need to be cooked slow and long it can't be hurried for best results.

Beer, something like Newcastle Brown ale, makes it extra special and the taste just compliments beef so well.

Try here for gazillions of recipes http://uktv.co.uk/food/homepage/sid/7211

The simplest one, and one of the tastiest too, is just Steak, cubed (shin is very tasty if you can get it), Onion or shallots (not red ones) Carrots, Leek, Garlic clove, potatoes, Red Wine, Balsamic Vinegar or Sherry and stock cubes.  Coarsely chop the onion, leek, carrotts and garlic. Heat a little oil  in a deep pan, and gently  fry fry in turn the veg, I start with the carrotts, then leeks and last onions adding the garlic for the last minute of the onions. You want to gently colour the leaks and carrots and soften the onions.  Put veg to oneside and brown off hte cubed stake which has been coated in flour seasoned with salt and black pepper.  Brown on both  sides.  Put with veg and "deglaze" the pan with your liquid - just add a slosh of red wine, balsamic or even sherry to the pan which is still on the heat and stir vigorously, getting all the sticky bits off the pan and incorporated into the liquid. Put the steak and veg back into the pan and add stock cubes and top up with boiling water.  Bring to gentle boil and put lid on, check that the heat is low enough to keep it gently simmering not fast boil.  Simmer for at least 2 hours.  Add potatoes cut into big chunks and cook for a further 30 mins till potatoes are tender.  Check if further seasoning is required (usually not).  This is a real old fashioned stew, but works just as well done in the oven as a casserole, or in a slow cooker.

I'm not very good at following 'recipes' so here's what I'd do with the ingredients you've listed;

Chop the beef, carrots, onion & mushrooms into fairly evenly sized pieces, then dump all of these, a cupful of water & the other ingredients into a casserole pot, pop a lid on a shove in a medium (140 ish) oven for about 3-4 hours. Brown the beef first in a very hot pan for a minute or so if you want, this does help to seal the juices in & add to the flavour.

Then roast the potatoes to have with them :-)

I regularly make some sort of stew or casserole in this way, adding whatever happens to be to hand, and they usually turn out very well (although I have had the odd disaster!!)

Pearl barley is very nice chucked into chicken or gammon casserole if you have any handy :-)

Claire

Lots of black pepper essential and for added flavour try a tin of condensed soup, mushroom, celery or tomato.

Right beef stew is currently slow cooking. I cut up my beef pieces coated in flour and browned into the SC. I had the Knorr stock stuff..the jelly one of rich beef. I also had a herbal infusion one with bay, thyme and parsley. a few glugs of boiling water some chartonay (sp) carrots, half my cooked onions (rest will go in later) potatoes. Mushrooms to go in later. Oh and I added a glug of Balsamic and some light soy sauce along with black pepper and garlic granules. Had a quick taste and so far so good.

Now another question....how to make dumplings???  :-)

Just had a boring teacake for lunch and after reading this lot am now starving again!! All sound delicious!! I've got coq au vin though tonight and forgot who posted it but you got me going about roast spuds...hmmmm...delicious! Extra roughly chipped for extra crispiness in beef dripping...Looooovely.

I did a stew once with must have been bitter cause twas awful. Just brown the beef and fling it all in a pot and as others have said throw some worcester/balsamic in there.As my lot always say the best meals are those I just fling together.

Well after reading all this, guess what i'll be making later (well tomorrow when i've defrosted the meat) yum.

I was just thinking the self same thing!

Still hungry!!

I have now added in a tin of chopped tomatoes and as someone suggested I added in condensed soup (cream of celery) I had a taste and can't wait for dinner time.:-)

Maybe make some rice as well....to fill up the kids..

Cheers for the ideas..