Quick Beef Stew

Brown the beef with the garlic and onion until the onion is translucent, the meat only needs to be browned and not cooked through. Add the broth, bay leaf and the rest of the vegetables. Put the lid on the pressure cooker and wait for the steam to escape from the vent pipe. Then put the weight on. Wait for the weight to begin to jiggle pretty enthusiastically, when it does turn the heat down to medium to stabilize the pressure. (Sometimes the heat even needs to go as far down as low to get an even jiggle on the weight.) You start timing when you turn down the heat.

Pressure cook for 35 minutes.

Release the pressure by tipping the weight to let the steam out or you can run the entire pot under cold water. You will hear the pressure go down if you listen carefully. If you are unsure if the pressure has been completely released, take the weight entirely off the vent pipe. This will release any remaining pressure.

At this point the stew should be done. Be careful removing the lid, always try to get in the habit of opening the lid away from you because the steam that will escape is very hot.

Now it's time to make the dumplings. Mix up the bisquit mix (you could have been doing this during the time the stew was pressure cooking) and drop by heaping tablespoons onto the food in the stew. Let cook on low heat (gently bubbling ) for about 3 minutes with the lid off then put the lid back on, but not the weight, cook about 7 more minutes for great dumplings.

Take off the lid and Voila! Stew with Dumplings! Put a dumpling in with each serving for as long as they last. The dumplings will sop up the liquid and make the stew thicker if they don't all get eaten right away (which happens). Add more boullion and make more dumplings the next day when you have the stew for leftovers. That is if it wasn't all eaten at the first sitting.

This recipe yields ?? servings.