Cinnamon Beef Stew

It's stew weather, and I'd had this Tana Ramsey recipe bookmarked for quite some time.  One of the aspects that had stopped me was experience in the size of my casserole dish compared with the size of Tana's meals.  There's always so much food!  So, without a large-family-sized dish, I halved the recipe.  I also didn't do a thorough check of my pantry before shopping so was without the tomato puree - I don't think it really suffered though.  And as it turned out, I didn't have enough marsala either, so topped it up with some soy sauce.  This was also a 'day of' decision, so I didn't get to marinade for too long either - next time.  Here I'll put my quantities and indicate what it was meant to be.

Ingredients:
500g braising steak (I used chuck steak), cut into 5cm/2 inch cubes
100mL marsala (I had maybe 30mL, and just sploshed over some soy sauce - enough to cover the meat)
1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
1/2 stick celery, cut into chunks
1 garlic clove, peeled
1/2 a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil
150g shallots, peeled (I didn't even come close to this amount, and just used the 8 or so remaining in the vegie drawer)
175g carrots (preferably baby - my organic carrots were quite small), scrubbed, topped and tailed, or cut diagonally into 2.5cm/1 inch chunks
[1/2 tablespoon tomato puree]
100mL water
1 bay leaf
1 large cinnamon stick
125mL (1/2 cup) beef stock
salt and black pepper

Method:
*Put the beef in a mixing bowl and pour the marsala over it.  Stir well to make sure the beef is separated and covered in wine.  Cover and leave at room temperature for 30 minutes-2 hours.
*Preheat oven to 180C.
*Put the onions, celery and garlic into a food processor/mini chopper and process until completely smooth.  Add the tomatoes to the food processor and blitz again.
*Remove the beef from the marinade [and dry on absorbent kitchen paper - oops missed that bit].  Reserve the marinade.
*Heat half the oil on a high heat in a casserole dish with a tight-fitting lid until it shimmers [or, if you don't have an stove-oven dish, like me, use a large saucepan].  Add the beef in batches and brown on all sides.  Transfer to a plate and put to one side.  Add the remaining oil and cook the carrots and shallots until coloured at the edges.  Either return the beef to the casserole, pour over the pureed vegetables and tomato mixture, add the tomato puree and reserved marinade and water, or put all ingredients - minus the stock - into a casserole dish with a lid.
*If using a stove-friendly dish, bring to the boil while stirring, then season with salt and pepper.  Tuck the bay leaf and cinnamon stick into the stew, making sure they are completely submerged in the liquid. 
*Place in the oven (with the lid on) and cook for an hour.  Add the beef stock, season with salt and pepper and stir.  Return to the oven and cook for a further 1 1/2 hours or until the beef is tender.

Great served with mashed potato (and a nice glass of red).  Serves 2-3.  This was just perfect for this weather.  I used a bit of cornflour to thicken up the sauce, but aside from that, this was just right.  Meltingly tender beef and the aroma of cinnamon.... Mmm...