Beef Stew!

I made the stew and omg it was good! There are a few things I'd do differently next time, but practise makes perfect as always. My rough recipe I used was as follows.

1 lb. beef chunks
1 small onion (no bigger than a tennis ball)
2 medium potatoes (little smaller than a softball)
three handfuls of baby carrots chopped in half
2 stalks of celery
4 mushrooms
1/2 tsp of thyme
1/4 tsp of garlic
1 can of beef broth (I used consumme, had an old can in the back of the cupboard)
1 can of tomato paste
1/4 tsp of pepper
2 cups of water

3 tbsp of cornstarch
1/3 cup of water

Veggies chopped on the bottom of the crockpot, brown the meat in a skillet. Add the water and broth and paste and spices on top of the veggies and then add the browned meat. Cook on high for 4 hours. 1/2 hour before it's done, add the cornstarch and 1/3c of water to help thicken.

The general concensus was too many carrots and a little too salty (I'm thinking from the consumme) I think next time I'll add more mushrooms and onion in place of some of the carrots, add beef broth instead of consumme and maybe a bit more garlic for flavor. Some recipes call for paprika too, that might be tasty.