Beef Stew Meal-In-A-Jar

My meal in a jar recipe for February is a traditional beef stew, like my mom always made when we were growing up. There are a few adjustments that you can make depending on how you are going to eat prepare and eat this meal, but however you do it, it's going to be classic and delicious! 

 We are currently in a nasty cold streak with daily highs around -20 Celsius and wind chills that often take our lows to -40 Celsius. In the midst of this cold snap, we had a hockey tournament. Just when you want to curl up with a good book all weekend, we are going back and for from home to rink, without much break between.
Between games, I decided to make this recipe and throw it in the crock pot so that it would be ready when we came home and were in need of something to warm our bones. When I put it in the crock pot, I made a few adjustments that I'll explain. For a quick boil and serve meal, follow the instructions in the graphic. If you want adjustments for the crockpot, keep reading.

 Because this recipe is designed as a meal-in-a-jar, I used potato dices, they are freeze dried and therefor cook quickly. When I put this in the crock pot, I used potato chunks which are dehydrated and take longer to cook. In a crock pot, you are cooking slowly over time, if you use the freeze dried potato dices, you'll have mashed potatoes in your stew instead of potato cubes.
You can also adjust the recipe to include whichever veggies you like I used peas and corn because I had it on hand and I wanted a more traditional flavour, but you could use asparagus, bell peppers, broccoli or whatever you like just make sure the veggies add up to 1.5-2 cups, or you wont fit them all in your jar. That being said, if you have a bit of extra space, feel free to add some more veggies to your jar.
For the gravy mix, I used thrive Brown Gravy (Espagnole) sauce, but you can use whichever gravy mix you generally like. Depending on the flavour in your gravy mix, you may want to add salt and pepper to taste after cooking.

This recipe was a huge hit in my house. My boys loved the simple, homey flavours. It would have been great with fresh buns, but I didn't have any and wasn't up to baking that night. I also used more water in mine so it made it a bit more soupy, which is what we wanted on that night. However, if you want more of a stew consistency, follow the instructions and use 4 cups of water (this was using 5 cups).