Slow Cooker Cube Steak with Gravy

A dear friend blessed me with a couple packages of cube steaks, and I knew just what to do with them. Tuesday's are very busy for us ever since our girls started cheerleading. I'll be out of the house from 3:30pm to 6:15pm. Let me tell you, there is nothing worse than coming home at 6:15pm with hungry cranky kids in tow and having no clue what you're going to fix for dinner.

Here is my take on a traditional cube steak with gravy dinner.

Ingredients:

Beef cube steak (thawed)
1 cup flour
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
1 onion chopped
4 beef bouillon cubes
2 cups water
2 tbsp. oil
2 small cans cream of mushroom soup

Directions:

1. Place 2 cups water in a small saucepan with bouillon cubes, chopped onion, and a dash of garlic powder. Bring to a boil and simmer.
2. Place flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder in a pie plate. Mix with fork. (I don't give exact amounts, because I don't know! I would guess about 1 tsp. of each.)
3. In a large frying pan, heat the oil.
4. Dredge the steaks in the flour mixture and place in hot pan.
5. Brown the steaks on both sides. You're not cooking the steaks, just browning them. They will cook in the crock pot...you don't want them to be dry.
6. Remove from pan and place in bottom of slow cooker.
7. Don't skip the flour. It's important for two parts of this recipe...it will help form the thick gravy in the slow cooker and it's vital to this next step.
8. Remember the bouillon mixture you've got going? Add that to the hot pan of crusty, brown, flavorful goodness you just took the steaks out of. It will be very bubbly, very fast...but don't panic, just whisk it all together. Whisk, whisk, until everything comes up off the bottom of the pan.
9. Now, dump the two cans of cream of mushroom soup over the steaks and spread evenly.
10. Pour the onion soup mixture into the slow cooker...right on top of everything!
11. Cook on low for 6-8 hours and enjoy the smell permeating through your house.

Now, I'll also go ahead and cook some mashed potatoes at this point. When they're done, I'll put them in the fridge to warm up when I get home. The cube steaks make a perfect gravy to top the potatoes, add a side of corn and I'm in heaven. If I were really ambitious, I would make some biscuits...but I'm just not feeling it today!!

***Helpful Hint: Did you catch on to what the beef bouillon and onions essentially made? French onion soup!! I never have that in the house, and a jar of bouillon is so much cheaper that I'd just as soon make my own. If you don't have a particular ingredient, search the web for an easy alternative. Many times you can make a substitute that's just as good or better.