Stew

You can't have too much stew this weather.  Here is one way to cook it.  I should add that at the moment I am cooking on a 1 ring camping gas stove plus a microwave.

Ingredients
1 or 2 onions
a carrot or 2
a leek
a stick of celery
half a swede
Olive oil
Oregano
Thyme
Black pepper
500g stewing beef, cut into chunks
dessertspoon of plain flour
squeeze of tomato puree
about a pint of water
Worcester sauce
Oxo cube

Finely chop the onions and carrots, slice the leeks and celery and cut the swede into roughly 1 cm squares.  Heat some olive oil in a pan and gently fry the vegetables with a little thyme and a good shake of oregano until the leeks and onions are going soft.  Take them out of the pan, add a little more oil and fry the beef, sprinkling with pepper to taste, until it is brown on the outside.  Add the vegetables, mix it all together and fry for a couple more minutes.
Meanwhile, put the flour in a jug or bowl, add about half a cup of cold water and mix well.  Then add a squeeze of tomato puree and a good shake of Lee and Perrins.  Add boiling water and stir, then crumble the oxo cube into this mixture and pour the whole lot onto the meat and vegetables in the pan.  Stir well, add a couple of bay leaves, bring to the boil then put a lid on the pan and turn as low as it will go and leave it to cook slowly for a couple of hours.  You could add a handful of barley if you like it, it takes about an hour and a quarter to cook but doesn't really overcook.  Serve with mashed potatoes and a green vegetable.  This quantity will feed 4-5 depending on how much water you add :)

Makes me hungry just reading about it and I've just eaten.