At last--stew meat that isn't rubbery!

During my Quest for Simple Recipes, my friend Mabry gave me an easy one for stew.  She said it could be cooked on the stove or  in a crockpot, so I fished mine out of the cupboard.

I love the idea of a crockpot--throw everything in and leave it alone until dinnertime--but I've never had much luck with it or with making stew.   A little dubious,  I threw the few ingredients into the crockpot:

Vina's Stew

Stewing beef cut into 1-1/2" chunks (I used 1-1/2 pounds)
Carrots peeled and cut into 3/4" hunks (Mabry's noun, not mine)
Chopped onion (I used one)
1-2 T quick-cooking tapioca
About 1/3 cup of water.

Mabry said to use twice as many carrots as stew meat, so I did.   I stirred the ingredients  in the crockpot, put the lid on,  and set it on "Low."    It cooked from 2-9 pm.  When I tested the meat at 9 pm (we'd eaten a substitute dinner, see below), it seemed tough and rubbery,  my usual stew product.  I thought, "oh, fine, another rubbery stew," and put it in the fridge. In the meantime, I read online that boiling stew leads to rubbery meat.  I hadn't done that.  Why hadn't it worked?  Boo hoo.
\
The next day I got the stew out of the fridge,  put it in a Le Creuset pot,  added a little more liquid (white wine), stirred it up, and left it, lid on, to simmer for an hour-and-a-half.  Just before dishing it up, I added salt.

Glory be,  it was really good!   Next time, I 'll start earlier in the day and maybe use higher quality meat (less fat), but otherwise, what a good, simple meal.  Thanks, Mabry.

I'd thawed a Costco quiche as a precaution.  We had this the first night while the stew "rested" in the fridge.