KM Soup Kitchen Beef Stew Recipe

And How to Improve Your Complextion At the Same Time* 
A friend of mine in a small ranching community requested a cheap and charming beef stew recipe for her church's new soup kitchen. Here is my take on the matter. 
First off, I'd hit up Charlie at the IGA for the beef but really you might start off with those rancher's wives we both know; they have so much of that stuff in their freezers and it tastes so much better. So ask Miss Janet and Miss Kathy to donate some beef tips.  Ride herd on that project or better yet, have your adorable, fourth grade daughter call these women up and ask for it because it will work! The saints have never been shy about utilizing whatever natural assets are available. 
Then I'd buy lots of those packages of 15-bean soup. I wouldn't necessarily use the pork flavored spice package that comes with it but the taste of all those different beans with beef is luscious and of course it really extends the beef. 
Naturally, you want to start with what the Northern Italians call the battuta: saute onions, finely diced carrots, and celery in lots of olive oil – you can use some of it on your sparking clean mug as a beauty treatment while you are cooking and all that steam will create quite a facial. You will positively glisten with holiness too. Stir all of that up for about 20 minutes. 
Then add the beef; I like to flour it because it helps make a good gravy. Then add the already cooked dried beans, and start opening up cans of tomatoes, green beans and shoepeg corn. You might add some frozen okra. Maybe some bay leaf, Kosher salt and pepper, paprika, and a little dill weed for a treble note. And keep adding the olive oil. I'll send you some juniper berries: add about 5 of those along with the bay leaf in a bouquet garni – cheesecloth tied up with thread so you can fish it out. 
So the point is, start with your battuta, beef, and cooked dried beans and then just add what you can beg, borrow, or beg some more and keep adding and stretching and it will change and permute into something warm and fine and filling. Want me to come help you? I will… 
*There is nothing in the Catechism about not being able to indulge in a tiny beauty treatment while engaging in acts of mercy. Remember, the Lord loves a cheerful giver and so do those people who work with you in that steaming hot kitchen. Besides, you'll smile more when you ladle it out and that is worth a lot when you are a proud Osage Indian or a broken down cowboy or a single mother standing in line to receive your soul nourishing soup.