4 lbs beef in a roast cut
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp coarse ground black pepper
pinch ground cloves
1/2 tsp mustard powder
1 large yellow onion
2 carrots
2 sticks celery
12oz Bordeaux wine
2 lb baby red potatoes
12oz baby bella mushrooms
1 Tbsp chopped garlic
dash garlic powder
thickener (low carb if you can find it)
12oz sliced mushrooms
Crank the crock pot on high with nothing in it, then drop the meat into the already hot crockpot to brown it. In our case we used two 2-pound pieces so they fit nicely into our crock pot.
Let the meat cook for about 5 minutes. Sprinkle on 1 tsp sea salt. If you choose to use table salt instead, cut back a bit on how much you use. Add 1 tsp black pepper. Rub these both into the meat. Sprinkle on the cloves and mustard.
Cut the onion so that some pieces are finely slivered and others are diced. Add this to the pot. Cut the carrot into 1" strips and add that in. Finely chop the celery and in it goes. Pour in half of the Bordeaux.
Let the mixture cook for about an hour. Slice the potatoes in half, add those in. Cook for another 4 hours on high. Add in the mushrooms and the other half of the wine. Sprinkle on the chopped garlic and the garlic powder.
An hour later, pull out all of the solids with a slotted spoon. Don't worry if you miss a few onions or carrot bits. Add in some thickener and the sliced mushrooms. Cook this for another 2 hours to create a mushroom gravy. Note that you can saute the mushrooms and then do the gravy for much less time, if you don't want to wait the extra 2 hours for this part to be done. We happened to have had the time and wanted the mushrooms and gravy to have a nice, rich flavor.
Note that if you need more volume to your gravy, you can always add in a can of beef broth to increase the volume.
For real low carbers, leave out the potatoes, since they provide 99% of the carbs - or adjust the potato volume to match how many carbs you can consume. Other than that, really the only carbs come from however many carrots you eat. Celery is only 0.8g for a half cup - which I doubt you'd get in a serving - and carrots are 5.1g for a half cup. The mushrooms are 1g per half cup. I happen to dodge carrots myself, so I would probably only get say .5g for a whole serving. If you ate nothing but carrots and beef, you'd be on the 5g for a whole serving. It all depends how you personally tend to eat :)
Lisa Shea's Library of Low Carb Books
