Beef Bourguignon

Four weeks and counting until baby number 4 arrives.  I can't wait, I can't bend, walk or climb stairs without making noises!  My husband has mistaken my massive maternity pants for our 5 year old daughters t-shirt when helping me fold laundry.... this is a sad day!

I am also a little shocked at the amount of snow we are getting in March, roll on spring I say!  This is a great winter warmer, give it go before it hopefully warms up!

Ingredients

• 3 rashes of smoked bacon
• 1 kg steak/stewing steak
• 2 tbsp flour
• 300 g button mushrooms
• 12ish Charlotte onions - I didn't have any but quartered 2 cooking onions
• 1/2 bottle red wine - The alcohol is cooked off during the cooking time! But if you don't like cooking with wine make 200 ml of extra beef stock
• 300ml beef stock
• 1 tsp thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 garlic clove crushed

Method

1. Pre heat the oven to 180 c/ Gas 4
2. You will need a lidded casserole dish that can go on and in both the hob and oven. Fry the bacon remove and set aside. Toss the meat in the flour fry browning off the meat remove and set aside.
3. Fry the onions until going golden, then re- add the bacon, meat and all other ingredients including wine and stock in saucepan then bring to boil putting the lid on. Cook in the oven at 180 c for 1 1/2 hours until the meat is really soft and the sauce has thickened. (You can simmer this on the hob, but for me it seems easier to have it in the oven out the way!)
4. I serve this with mashed potatoes and carrots!