The Cost of Making Slow Cooker Beef Stew

I am now the proud owner of a four-quart Crock-Pot programmable slow cooker, for which I paid nothing, thanks to friends who gave me housewarming gift cards. (I did check out the Value Village first. Their slow cookers were kinda grody-looking, and the prices were not what I wanted to pay for a beat-up slow cooker that I would have to power clean before I used it.)

So let’s figure out if making slow cooker beef stew is the type of thing that’s going to benefit me financially, or if it’s going to be another $17 thing of homemade muesli. Here’s what I bought:

— 0.86 lbs of Open Nature Grass Fed Angus Beef stew meat chunks: $6.01

— 4-cup box of Safeway brand beef stock: $2.00

— One stick of celery: $0.29

— Two carrots: $0.50

— 5 lbs of red potatoes: $3.99, but I only need four potatoes for the recipe, so about $0.75

— 1 bottle Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon: $5.99, but I only need 1 cup for the recipe, so $2.00

— Two heads of garlic: $1.00, but I only need three cloves for the recipe, so $0.20

— 10 oz of Safeway brand Worchestershire Sauce: $1.99, but I’ll probably use $0.05 worth

— Three containers of McCormick spices for the price of two (parsley, allspice, bay leaves): $10.28, but I’ll probably use $0.10 worth

— One box of Jiffy cornbread mix that I am going to use for dusting the beef, thickening the sauce, and then actually making cornbread (instead of buying pre-made rolls): $0.69

— One dozen Lucerne jumbo eggs: $2.59, but I only need one for the cornbread, so $0.22

Total cost of making 4 quarts of beef stew and one small pan of cornbread: $12.81

Here are some questions you might be asking yourself:

“Why didn’t you just get the big bags of carrots/celery for $1.25 each?” The answer is “because the 17 freezer containers I bought for $10.83* on Amazon won’t arrive until tonight,” which in retrospect is pretty ridiculous because I could still have chopped up all of those carrots and celery this evening and turned them into frozen mirepoix. Sometimes I make bad choices, okay?

“Is Open Nature Grass Fed Angus Beef stew meat really better than Safeway brand stew meat?” I have no idea. I know it cost $2 more, and that felt like an affordable healthy choice.

“Does Nicole know the difference between cooking wine and Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon?” Yes, but I grew up seeing my parents pour actual wine into their spaghetti and chicken cacciatore sauces, so I thought this might work.

“Is she seriously using cornbread mix in lieu of cornstarch?” SHHHHH THIS IS GOING TO WORK.

It took me about 30 minutes to chop everything up and put the stew together, and as you can see from the photo, it turned out like stew. And cornbread. And it tasted delicious.

My kitchen is still missing a few essential tools, like “a method of getting stew out of the Crock-Pot that isn’t a mug” and “a method of getting cornbread out of the baking dish that isn’t a fork,” but my $22.99* 7-piece set of Dexter Supplies’ Cute Kitchen Utensils With Colorful Handles is due to arrive in the same Amazon package as the freezer containers. This means my next batch of cornbread will not be in crumble form.

I’d call this cooking adventure a financial and culinary success! Also, if you want the recipe, um… put the meat in a slow cooker, dust it with cornbread mix, add all the rest of the stuff, and cook it on high for about six hours.

*Technically these tools cost me nothing because gift cards (and friends) are amazing.

This story is part of DIY Month.

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