My husband loves beef stew…. and I love crock pot meals, so this slow cooker hearty beef stew is a win in our house. One (1-1/2 cup) serving is just 6 Weight Watchers FreeStyle Smart Points. This recipe makes 8 servings, so we were able to eat the leftovers the next day. All of the slow cooker meals we are sharing this week make more than our typical meal plan recipes that usually serve about 4-5 people.

In our house we feed 5 people (well… more like 4-1/2 since our youngest barely eats anything) so we had leftovers each night this week. If you are in a similar boat you might consider doing one of the following 4 things:

1. Freeze the leftovers in a freezer Ziploc bag (date it in case if you don’t get to it right away) and reheat it for dinner another night when you are not sure what to cook. (great plan for crazy, busy nights when you need to get dinner on the table in a hurry)
2. Refrigerate leftovers in appropriate serving sizes and heat it up for lunch the next day (or next couple of days). If you are a Weight Watcher member the food will already be measured for you and you will already know how many smart points a serving is from the night before. (in this case 6 WW SP for a 1-1/2 cup serving)
3. Cook this on a night when you will be feeding a bigger crowd.
4. Take half of the beef stew to a friend who is going through a hard time and would appreciate not having to make dinner for a night.

Did you already sign up for our giveaway this week? Martha McKinnon from Simple Nourished Living is offering one of our readers a FREE ecookbook that includes 50 of her favorite slow cooker recipes. Each recipe includes Weight Watcher smart points and nutritional information. This slow cooker hearty beef stew recipe is one of the 50 recipes in the “50 Favorite Slow Cooker Recipes eCookbook for Weight Watchers: SmartPoints Edition”.  You can go here to enter into the giveaway for a free copy of Martha’s ecookbook.

Now how about some beef stew?!

Here is what you need:

2 lb. lean stew beef
1 t. salt
½ t. ground black pepper
1/3 c. all-purpose flour
1 ½ c. beef broth
½ c. tomato sauce (4 oz. canned)
4 medium red potatoes
2 medium onions
1 c. baby carrots
2 c. frozen corn kernels
2 cans (about 15 oz. each) cut canned string beans, drained
4 cloves garlic
2 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 t. dried thyme leaves crushed
¼ c. chopped fresh parsley

Here is what you do:

(First I trimmed the fat off of my meat)

1. Season the beef with salt and pepper, then toss with the flour to coat the meat.
   (my lovely assistant helped out with this part)
2. Grease the crock pot with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Place the beef in the slow cooker.
4. Stir in the broth, tomato sauce, potatoes, carrots, corn, green beans, garlic and thyme.
5. Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 9 hours, or until the beef and vegetables are fork-tender.
6. Stir in chopped fresh parsley.
7. Taste and add salt and pepper if necessary.

Makes 8 servings.
One serving is 1-1/2 cup.
One serving is 6 WW FreeStyle Smart Points.

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Nutrition Facts per serving (1-1/2 cups):

276 calories, 3.8 g total fat, 1.9 g sat fat, 0g trans fat, 61 mg chol, 301 mg sodium, 37.3 g total carbs, 5 g sugar, 5.4 fiber, 22.8 g protein, 10 mg calc.