 The weather is chilly and rainy, so it's time for some butternut squash stew. This thing is hearty, it is full of protein, I've got some garbanzo beans in there, lentils, and of course some stew meat. And this recipe is gonna be cooked in the Instant Pot. Lots of flavors going on here, guys. You're gonna love it. I'm Rockin' Robin, and I'm gonna show you how to make it right after my chef joke. Okay, let's start off here with chef joke number one. A man goes into a restaurant and orders a bowl of soup. The waiter brings it over, the guy takes a taste and says, hey, this tastes funny. And the waiter says, well, why aren't you laughing? So the first thing we're gonna start off with is our butternut squash. Now you can either buy it like I've got here, or you have to prep it up, or you can buy it already cut up, which is gonna save you some time. So to cut up a butternut squash, you're gonna wanna cut off the end so you have a nice flat surface and things don't roll around so much. I'm gonna cut off the neck part of this because there's no seeds in that part. Then I'll cut off the other end. And now you'll just trim off the skin. You just slice it down very thin with your knife. Then I'm gonna cut it into bite-sized chunks. Rotate your stack and then cut it into bite-sized pieces. So when you cut the part that has the seeds in there, you're gonna wanna still peel it like we did and it's a little bit harder because it's a little more curvy. So basically just take your knife and just follow along the curves. Once you're done trimming, just turn the piece over and cut it in half and then half again. Now you can just grab a spoon and scoop out the seeds. And then you can cut that into bite-sized pieces. We're also gonna chop up one zucchini into bite-sized pieces. Next we're gonna prep up a yellow onion into the superfine dice. I like to make some horizontal cuts first and then some vertical cuts after that. And then just give it a nice slice and you can see the pieces come out nice and small. Now we're gonna start cooking our onion. I have a large frying pan here over medium-high heat and I'm dropping in some olive oil. Then we'll place our onions right in the pan and we'll saute these for about five minutes. While I'm waiting for the onions, I'm gonna prep up some garlic. Take some fresh garlic, cut off the end and give it the old smash like you might do the like button if you're enjoying this video. The skin should come off nice and easy. I'm gonna place my garlic into a garlic press and then we're gonna squeeze it into our onions and stir in the garlic for about one minute. Now we're gonna place the onion and garlic right into the instant pot. Let's talk about our meat now. I have stew meat here. I splurged, I bought 100% grass-fed and it's pretty amazing stuff. Now you can see here, the chunks are quite big and I like to cut these into bite-sized pieces that way we get a little bit in every bite, right? I mean, some people could just scoop up all the meat and that's it, right? We're not gonna let that happen. Take a piece like this. I'll cut it in half. Sometimes I'll cut it into thirds or in this case and I'll trim off a little bit of that fat. I mean, that piece is okay, but I'm gonna cut that one down too. So you're gonna see me go through this and get lots of nice pieces out of it. Each piece I'm gonna get at least four. So this is what it looks like after I trimmed it all up. You know that frying pan we used for the onions? Well, now we're gonna use it for the meat. I got it over a medium-high heat. I want this hot because we're just searing the meat. Pour in a little bit of olive oil and let it get hot. Go ahead and swirl the oil in the pan and then toss in that stew meat. Make sure to spread out all the pieces on the bottom of the pan so each one is touching the bottom of the pan so it can sear up and then don't touch it for like two or three minutes. Add a bit of salt while you're waiting. After about two minutes, flip all the pieces over and then let it cook again for another couple minutes. Now it's time to toss that meat into the Instant Pot. I'm using chicken stock in this, but you can certainly use beef stock if you have it. I'm gonna start off by using a couple of cups and we'll adjust as we go. We're gonna add some spices to this. First up is my oregano, which I got at Sprouts by the way. It's a good deal. It's organic. I have my own Italian spice blend that I'd like you to try out. I'll leave a link in the description for you to that video. But yeah, it's just a combination of different spices so I'm gonna put some of that in. And then we'll add a little bit of dried basil. Now of course we're gonna have to add a little salt so it's gonna be somewhere between a half and a teaspoon. We're gonna place the sweet potatoes in there and the crushed tomato. Next goes some lentils. Now these are green and I like the green because they're firm and what they also do is provide some protein to this dish and they thicken it up. And we're not using too many. Just about a half a cup, maybe a little less. Toss them right in there. Next goes a little Worcestershire sauce for a little bit of extra flavor. Now for more protein and fiber, we're adding some chickpeas or gobanzo beans. Then we're gonna go ahead and cook this on high heat for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, do a quick release and then we'll add the zucchini because we don't want that to get too mushy. We'll cook this again on high for 15 minutes. After another 15 minutes of cooking, do a quick release and here we go. This is our stew. If only you could smell my kitchen right now. This thing is so delicious. It's hearty, it's flavorful. Look at those gobanzo beans and the zucchini and of course the butternut squash and that beef and the flavors and the spices. It all brings it together and it is delicious. This is the stew to try for these cold, wintery months and it's nice to season this up with a little bit of fresh chopped parsley. Hey, let me know in the comments if you're gonna try this stew. I sure hope you do. If you're looking for more soups, look no further than my homemade chicken soup here. This is packed with nutrition and it's delicious. Click the link on the screen and it'll take you right to the recipe. Hey, I hope you enjoyed today's video. If you did, smash that like button and share the video with someone you think might enjoy a delicious hearty stew. All right, we'll see you back here next week for another rockin' recipe. Cheers.