Crock Pot Beef and Broccoli

This is one of our family favorites. It is so easy and so good - I had to share. Can't believe it has taken me this long to actually share it!

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs boneless beef chuck roast or flank steak
• 1 C beef consomme (or beef broth)
• 1/2 C soy sauce
• 1/3 C brown sugar
• 1 T sesame oil
• 4 minced garlic cloves
• 2 T cornstarch
• 2 T cold beef broth
• Fresh broccoli florets cut in smallish pieces (as many as desired)

Directions:

1. Place Beef in crock pot. Pepper it to taste if you want.
2. In small bowl, combine consomme, soy sauce, brown sugar, oil and garlic. Pour over beef. Cook on low for 6 - 8 hours.
3. Near the end of your 6-8 hours (or 45 minutes before you want to serve), whisk 2T cornstarch into 2T of COLD beef broth in small bowl. Add this mixture to sauce in crock pot and stir until smooth/combined. Set crock pot on HIGH so it will heat up to a boil. (This is to thicken the sauce. If your sauce is not thickening, you can try bringing all your sauce to a boil on the stovetop with the cornstarch mixture. Boil until your desired consistency is reached. I always skip the boil on stove part and my sauce is never very thick.  Perhaps I should try it someday . . .)
4. Add broccoli to the crock pot. Stir to combine.
5. Cover and cook an additional 30-45 minutes on HIGH (sauce has to boil to thicken and to cook the broccoli).
6. Serve over brown rice or Quinoa.

Tips:

• Beef:
•  I prefer this recipe with flank steak, but it has gotten super expensive. So I just buy whatever type of 'roast' is on sale. 
• Optional: cut the beef up into strips before cooking. This works very well and makes beef super tender, but sometimes it shreds up really tiny after. Just depends on how your family likes it - bigger chunks of beef or tiny shreds. If you don't cut it up before you cook it, it basically shreds by itself in step 3 when you stir in cornstarch mixture. 
• Broccoli:
• I usually use a ton of broccoli - maybe 5+ cups just because we like our greens over here, but you can use however much you want. Works best cut in bite size pieces.
• It also works really well if you steam your broccoli on the stove and just dump in at the end of step 5 just before serving. This gives the sauce some time to boil and thicken with the cornstarch without the broccoli getting in the way. This is totally optional - does not make that big of a difference, but if you do this, make sure you just lightly steam your broccoli so it does not fall apart or isn't mushy when you add it to the crock pot.