Heat small amount of olive oil in heavy frying pan over medium-high heat, add mushrooms and cook several minutes, until starting to brown. Add mushrooms to slow cooker.

Add a little more oil, then cook diced onions about 5 minutes, or until starting to brown. Add onions to slow cooker.

Add a little more oil again, then add diced beef and brown well, about 10-15 minutes. Don’t rush the browning step. Add beef to the slow cooker.

Add 1 cup beef stock to the pan and simmer a few minutes until slightly reduced, scraping off all browned bits, then add that stock to the slow cooker.

Add diced tomatoes and juice, tomato sauce, balsamic vinegar, olives, garlic, rosemary, parsley, capers, and a little black pepper. Stir gently to combine, then put lid on Crockpot and cook 6-8 hours on low. (You could cook this 3-4 hours on high, but for a recipe with large pieces of garlic like this I prefer the low setting.)

Season to taste with salt and more fresh ground black pepper and serve hot.

If you do all the advance preparation the night before and put the combined ingredient in the refrigerator overnight, this could cook as long as 10 hours in the Crockpot while you’re at work. Manufacturers don’t recommend putting crockery liner with prepared ingredients in the refrigerator; store in another container so contents stay cold, then put in Crockpot in the morning.

Follow all the preparation steps as outlined, putting ingredients in heavy dutch oven type pan. Add one cup additional beef stock. Simmer on very low heat about 2 hours.