Slow Cooker Beef Stew

This recipe came from an email from vocal point

Slow Cooker Beef Stew
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
2 lbs. stew meat, cut into chunks
6 new potatoes, scrubbed, with skins on, cut into chunks
½ bag of baby carrots
1 pkg. dry onion soup/dip mix
1 pkg. brown gravy mix
1 ½ c. apple juice.

Layer the carrots and potatoes in the bottom of the slow cooker. Vegetables tend to take the longest to cook in this device, so it’s best to put them as close to the surfaces of the cooker as possible. Put the meat on top.
In a small bowl, mix the apple juice, gravy mix and onion soup mix. Pour the mixture over the top of the meat. Put the lid on and cook on “low” for eight hours.
A few things to keep in mind when cooking with a crock pot:
1. Don’t lift the lid to “peek” on the food. Steam is an essential part of the slow cooking process; every peek into the crock pot adds another 20 minutes of cooking time.
2. In the past, people avoided using the slow cooker because of the mess it creates. Search out “slow cooker liners” at the grocery store (in with the zipper-lock bags). They make cleanup a breeze.
Use this recipe as a starting point and tweak it to your own family’s liking. One friend adds Worchester sauce; another uses celery in place of the potatoes and serves over rice.