Provencal Beef Stew...

Ahhh, crockpot recipes...I actually set it and left the house this time...I never do that.  I hate having stuff on in my apartment when nobody's home...especially things that produce heat.  I may be a little over-cautious, but it makes me nervous.  To be fair, I wasn't really planning on being gone more than an hour or two...unfortunately, it turned into a $700, 6 hour, trip to Midas...ouch...I actually barely made it back in time to take it off before I passed the cooking time.  The original can be found at myrecipes.  Here's how I made it:

Provencal Beef Stew
6 servings - 271 calories each

Ingredients
2 tsp. olive oil
1 1/2 lb. boneless chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 1 inch cubes
2 T. flour
2 med. onions, cut into 8 wedges
8 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 c. dry red wine
1 c. beef broth
2 T. tomato paste
1 - 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained
3 c. (1-inch) slices zucchini
2 c. (1-inch) slices carrots (I just used baby carrots)
Salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, to taste

Directions
Sprinkle beef with salt and pepper, dredge in flour, and place in med-high skillet for 2-3 minutes, browning on all sides (not cooking through), then place in crock pot.  Add onions and garlic to pan you just removed beef from and saute 4-5 minutes until tender.  Add wine to loosen browned bits.  Pour entire mixture into crock pot.  Add all other ingredients to crock pot, and set on low for 8 hours.

Recipe Recap
Holy texture issue...I like zucchini, don't get me wrong...I just don't like it cooked for 8 hours in a crockpot...ech.  Between that and the fact that the sauce was super thin, it was more like a weird soup than a stew.  I could probably tweak it to make it again...thicken up the sauce, take out the zucchini, etc...but at that point, I think I'd rather just default back to my tried and true stew recipe.  Won't be making this one again.