Best Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients:
600-700g (about 1 & 1/3 lbs. to 1 & 1/2 lbs.) diced beef for stewing
300ml (10 oz.)of good beef stock
1 heaped Tablespoon of flour
1/2 an onion - diced
1/2 a red bell pepper (cut into short slivers)
1 clove of garlic - minced
A 150g (5-6 oz.) container of baby button or closed cup mushrooms - sliced
2/3 of a 250g (just under 9oz.) tub of full fat Philly or other brand of cream cheese
3 heaped Tbsp. of sour cream
1 tsp. of paprika
1/2 tsp. onion salt or onion granules
Dash Worcestershire sauce
Dash cracked black pepper
Cornflour or about 2 Tbsp. butter and 1 Tbsp. flour (if needed for thickening)
A large slow cooker (crockpot)

This is my best Stroganoff recipe yet.  I've typically just thrown it together over the years without a recipe and without taking the time to make sure it was as good as it could be, but when I took the time to add a couple of extra things and balance things out better, I came up with my best version.  It was an instant hit.  I tend to do recipes like this in the slow cooker because it makes the meat so much more tender and flavoursome and you can do it in the morning and walk away from it for a few hours.  I also find that the second day leftovers taste even better than on the first day.  For a family of 3, we get a full dinner 2 nights in a row out of this amount.

Method:
First, make 300ml (10 oz.) of beef stock and set aside.  Sprinkle a heaped tablespoon of flour over the diced beef in a large non-stick pan and lightly brown, tossing around, for just a minute or two to seal in the juices.  Dump the meat into the slow cooker and use a little of your stock to deglaze the pan and pour these thick juices into the slow cooker as well, along with the rest of your stock (I use a Knorr gel concentrated Rich Beef stock pot).  Begin your veg prep.  After washing your veg, dice half an onion, slice your mushrooms and cut half a red sweet pepper into short thin slivers.  Mince a clove of garlic and put this, along with the other veg, into the slow cooker. Add a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce, a dash of ground or cracked black pepper and your onion salt and paprika to the mixture and stir.  Set the slow cooker on high at first and allow it to cook this way for about 4 hours.  Stir or check occasionally.  Two hours before dinner time, add the cream cheese and sour cream, stir again and reduce the setting to low.  Cook for a further 2 hours.  This is the way I do mine, but the beauty of using a slow cooker is that nothing burns or over-cooks, so you can play around with timings.  If you work a 9-5 job, you could throw it in before work and leave it on low the whole time.  You could also add the cream cheese and sour cream in just an hour or even a half-hour before dinner.  As long as it has time to melt and blend in, it will work. 
This can be served with rice or mash or even chunky chips, but our favourite way to have it is with medium egg noodles (which you can find in Polish shops here) or tagliatelle & some garlic bread.
 * TIP - Depending on how much liquid comes from your mushrooms and beef, the thickness of the sauce can change a little each time you make this.  If the sauce seems to thin, simply add a bit of cornflour and water mixture or make a small amount of flour and butter roux and stir that in towards the end.  It should thicken up nicely.

So gorgeous and 'more-ish!'