Free Press Test Kitchen recipe: One Pot Beef Stew is perfect

Coat beef with flour, shaking off excess. In a large Dutch oven or other stovetop and oven-safe pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the beef and sauté until browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. Remove beef from pot.Add the sherry and broth to the pot, loosening the bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, mushrooms, tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, paprika, bay leaves and black pepper. Add browned beef.Stir to combine, cover and place in the oven for about 2 hours or until meat and vegetables are tender. Remove from the oven and place on stovetop.
In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine the cornstarch and water until dissolved. If you want to thicken the stew, mix the cornstarch mixture into the stew and allow to thicken, stirring constantly, over medium heat. Stir in the salt and remove bay leaves. Each serving yields about 1 cup.In all our years of operation, we have never had an instance of food-borne illness, and the intense training we provide to our culinary students is a big reason why. For students who have always been made to feel like part of "the problem" -- whether that problem is poverty, or drug abuse, or crime -- they're eager to be part of a solution, to give something back to a community they have often taken far too much from. And the high expectations help set a clear, measurable standard for them to judge their work by.
In 2012, we built two new classrooms that are pushing our skills training to higher levels. In our Culinary Training Kitchen, we installed modern kitchen equipment and practice stations suited to small group work and individual instruction. Student-teacher ratios matter in every educational setting, whether you're teaching kids or ex-cons. Thanks to this new space, our trainees are better prepared for the tools and techniques they will need to understand during their two-week-long professional internships across D.C. and on the first days of their new jobs. Meanwhile, our new computer lab helps our students seek out those employment opportunities and gives us space to provide special, quiet study sessions for the food handlers' licensing exam we administer to each student at the end of the program. It isn't easy to prepare for a test in a chaotic halfway house, and this new space offers a safe, productive learning environment where our staff can provide special one-on-one coaching.