McCormick Beef & Red Wine Casserole

There is nothing quite as delicious smelling as, well, anything in a slow cooker.  A month or two ago, boyfriend and I purchased our first slow cooker at Target. It's a tiny little thing, only makes 2-4 servings (depending on how hungry you are), but that's just fine for the two of us.  I've had a lot of fun figuring things out with it, with moderate successes.  I found that ad-libbing things in the slow cooker can have mixed results.  The curries were good, but the vegetable soup I tried was not so much.

To this effect, yesterday I decided to try a packaged sauce for slow cooker foods.  McCormick's Beef & Red Wine casserole.  I can't even begin to describe how delicious it smelled, and despite making some considerable modifications to the recipe, it tasted amazing.  I'm sorry, but I can't stand cooked celery... so I made some substitutions.  Here's the recipe I made, based on the package recipe.

McCormick Slow Cookers Beef & Red Wine Casserole

~600 g cubed beef (chuck or blade)
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
6-8 button mushrooms, rinsed and thickly sliced
1x400g  sachet McCormick Slow Cookers Beef & Red Wine Sauce
1 cup red wine (I used a Wyndham Estate Bin 999 Merlot, it was on sale)
a splash water, for extra liquid
1-2 bay leaves, rinsed
Potatoes, peeled and cubed (to serve casserole on)

Casserole

1. Brown beef on high, put in slow cooker.
2. Sautee onions until clear and soft, add to slow cooker
3. Add carrots, mushrooms, garlic to slow cooker
4. In measuring cup (or glass of any sort I suppose) mix wine and sauce sachet, pour into slow cooker, stir to combine all ingredients. 
5. Add bay leaves.
6. Cook on high 4 hours or low 6-8 hours.

To serve

1. Add peeled and cubed potatoes to sauce pan full of cold water
2. Bring to boil, cook 15-20 minutes, until texture is as desired.

Serve casserole over warm potatoes.  I highly recommend having the rest of the wine with your dinner, but boyfriend also enjoyed a warm Porter (beer) with his.  The texture of this, while having more liquid (and less beef, onions, carrot) than the recipe called for was excellent, there was a bit of sauce, but it wasn't 'liquidy'.