Ship’s Thick Beef Stew

2.5- to 3.5-pound beef roast (make sure it will fit in your crock pot)

1 cup beef broth

2 cubes beef bouillon

1 large onion (or 2 small onions), coarsely chopped

4-6 large potatoes, cut into chunks

3-4 carrots, coarsely chopped

4-6 cloves garlic, cut into small wedges

paprika

salt

black pepper

You’ll be making a rub for the roast that is equal parts paprika, salt and pepper. You’ll want enough to rub over the entire roast, so at least one teaspoon of each—and possibly quite a bit more.

Once you’ve rubbed the paprika/salt/pepper blend into the whole roast, take a knife (I just use a steak knife) and score the top and sides of the roast. Squeeze the small garlic wedges into these incisions. Set the roast aside.

Put the potatoes, carrots and onions into the crock pot. Place the roast on top of the vegetables, with the top (the garlic wedged side) facing up.

Pour the beef broth into the crock pot, being careful not to wash off the rub on the roast. Toss in the bouillon cubes and make sure they’re in the broth, rather than sitting on top of the roast or on any vegetables that may not be submerged.

Set the crock pot to “high” and ignore it for between 5.5 hours (if the roast is closer to 2.5 pounds) and 6.5 hours (if the roast is closer to 3.5 pounds).

When you open the crock pot, take a big spoon and break the beef into chunks, stirring it around so that you end up with a big, sloppy mixture of beef, potatoes, onions and carrots. There should be plenty of liquid.

Voila! Thick and delicious beef stew. I like mine with some fresh-baked bread and a big bottle of Tabasco sauce. Enjoy!

*A note about the illustration: Sometimes blog posts come to us with photos, and sometimes they don’t. The Virginia Living test kitchen has made this recipe twice, both times with highly successful results, but without success in capturing this wonder on film before it was consumed. (Plus, you know, it's just ... brown.) So we gave up and asked the youngest member of our test kitchen group to produce an illustration of the oldest member of the test kitchen group enjoying the stew. The artist insists that this is not intended to be an exact representation of his father, but the sentiment depicted is spot-on.