Old Fashioned Beef Stew

This is what I served John for dinner last night. It takes a little more preparation than my usual recipes but the taste is well worth the effort in my humble opinion.

Old Fashioned Beef Stew

1 pound beef stew meat
24 ounces of mini potatoes washed
1 medium sweet onion coarsely chopped
6 large sweet carrots peeled and coarsely sliced
1 whole celery washed and coarsely sliced
1 pound frozen mixed vegetables
salt and pepper to taste

Three and one half hours before dinner get your 4 1/4 quart Le Creuset pot or a similar sized pot. Make sure it will hold the steam in. I did not add any extra liquid to this recipe so it is important to not lose steam or liquid during cooking. If you pot lets out to much steam you may have to add water to keep this from burning.

On a medium heat add the stew meat with the salt and pepper to brown. Once the meat is no longer bright red add the onions and cook covered until the onions are soft. Then layer in the potatoes, carrots and celery. Cover and continue to heat on a medium heat for 30 minutes. Carefully take the lid off the pot to keep as much of the moisture in the pan as possible. Stir the pot and put the cover back on. Lower the temperature to medium low and cook for 1 more hour. Carefully take off the lid to preserve the moisture in the pan. Add the frozen vegetables and cover for 30 minutes. Stir and cover for the last half hour.

Serve with fresh bread or biscuits. Serves 4.

You may substitute fresh lamb, or chicken in the stew but the flavorings may have to be adjusted.

A New Contest for a New Shawl Pattern

I have just listed my new pattern called Handspun Sherbet Shawl in my etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/skaro964 . So In honor of the release of this pattern, I am having a contest.

The First Prize winner will win a copy of the pattern and enough yarn to make the shawl. Please note that since this shawl is made with hand spun yarn and I bought and used the entire batch of the yarn for this shawl.  This means that your yarn will be a different color.

The second prize winner will win a copy of the pattern and a set of stitch markers.

The third prize winner will win a set of stitch markers.

To enter just leave a comment about the shawl or my new etsy shop which is a little on the bare side now, but more goodies will be going in soon. Please leave a way for me to contact you. I will use a random number generator to pick the winners.

Contest ends November 20, 2011.

Of course if you can't wait to get a hold of the pattern please feel free to use the linky above to get to my shop.. Good luck and have a great weekend.

The Day that Went On and On

After my post yesterday, the day seemed to go on and on. I was up until 3:30 am with Eric. It was one heck of a night. We had it all fever, chills, icky tummy, tears, almost eyrping, sinus infection and almost anything thing else you could think of.

My day started at 7:00 am this morning. Eric's aide left at 8:00 and was suppose to be followed by a nurse. I tried calling the nursing agency several times but could not get through until about 10. I asked where Eric's nurse was and they told me she was here. You just gotta love the system. NOT. It took them until after 1pm to figure out where she was and offer to to get someone out in a few hours. Yeah right his afternoon aide comes in at 4:45p and there is a 2 hours minimum. So much for the extra help today.

The phone also was ringing non stop today. One place even called 3 times to confirm the same appointment for John. By the third call I was really annoyed. I think tired was setting in. The very bright phone call was from Teri. Eric and I had a good time chatting with her. Eric was really animated and did a lot of signing and sending hugs through the phone. I really have to add skype to my ipod.

On the bright side I got a small pile of bills paid and 4 boxes labeled and out to the car. That includes 6 pounds of left over Halloween candy and 10 scarfs to Operation Gratitude. A special box for Teri. Since she reads my blog I will not divulge the contents. The last box was filled with some items from Handmade~by~Sheri for on on line auction to help a mom pay for some cancer treatments. I will include a blurb around the time of the auction so you can check it out.

I also got some knitting done. Although I can say with certainty that I don't knit as fast when I am running on a sleep deprived cycle. I also do a lousy job of matching colors in the middle of the night so I have 2 hats on the needles at the same time. Something that I really don't like to do with scrappy hats.  My hope is that Eric sleeps tonight and that we get him out the door by Monday.

John will bring home dinner tonight. You just got to love a guy who works all day but still brings home dinner.  I would like to spin but I am so tired my eyes and hands are not working together. Things can only get better from here. A few good nights worth of sleep for all of us will fix everything.

I hope my blog is not to incoherent tonight, but I plead exhaustion. Enjoy your families.

Wild Eyrps and Other Things

Day umpteenth and 1 of Eric being sick. He has also shared his latest cold with me. He gave me one of his huge smiles when I thanked him for the cold.

It was a very busy but productive day. Eric had not 1 but 2 doctors office visits. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. Yes he did manage to eyrp at both offices. I have to say Dr. Williams and his staff handled the eyrping better than UPH. Luckily for me he did not eyrp at my doctors appointment. Other than a sinus infection Eric seems to be doing OK for Eric. My Arthritis seems to be OK and the meds seem to be working. By the way did you know your whole hand can act like a trigger finger? Its just something I thought I would pass along to you. Just in case you needed a random oddity to discuss.

I did bring a drop spindle and knitting with me today. I finished knitting one cap and started knitting another one. I also got a little spinning done. My to do list is a mess having only accomplished the doctors appointments and nothing else.

Well I think I will go get Eric's medicine and leave him with the nurse for a few minutes.  Then either collapse or work on Mondays to do list. That is yet to be decided. I always have to end a a bright note and today that note is dinner is cooked for tonight already. So have a good evening and enjoy your families.

Happy November

I hope every ones November is off to a great start. Mine has not started off well but will get better. I am home with a sick kiddo for it seems like the umpteenth day in a row. Yes I know it has not been that long.  It just seems like it. I hope to have time to post some new things in my etsy shop soon. I also need to go to the post office, do paper work, make phone calls and some serious straighting of the house.  Yes I will even try to get a nurse for tomorrow.

After I get Eric better, I will post a new contest. So be on the look out for it.

Well I am off to knit and hang with Eric. 

Spinning Outside the House

Yesterday I took my spinning outside. It was the first time I took my wheel outside to spin. It was such a nice day. I had my ice tea and i-pod for music. Yes I did play the song Spinning Wheels in the second set of music.  I had a great time. And learned a lot.

Some of the things that I learned included the most important lesson of spinning so far. If the fluff I am working with has a lot of left over farm matter, (read that as left over hay) I only have to dust the wheel afterwards. No vacuuming needed. After all who really cares if I leave dirt on the garage floor or the patio.

It is even more relaxing to spin outside. Listening to the birds chirp. Watching the bunnies stop and try to figure out if everything is OK with the new sound.

Watching the neighbors either walk by or drive by without stopping or saying hi.  Is it just me or do most people not like face to face any more.

I need to put a pad on the chair if I am going to be spinning for that long. It turns out I was having such a good time I did not notice that 2 hours had passed. The sore bottom did not hit until I stood up.

Even though spinning in the house is relaxing it helps to change things up a bit.

The things I need to figure out about the wheel. On the outside bobbin placement the wheel seems to work fine. If I put the drive belt on the middle on the whole wheel seems to go wobbly on me. I probably need a new belt or learn some adjustments. I think these things will come with time. But If you have the answers please leave a comment for me. Thanks.

Now it is time to finish processing the yarn I spun yesterday.

Destashing Progress

Well this morning was spent cleaning the garage and condensing my yarn stash. I am happy to report that I have 4 fewer containers of yarn than last time. 2 -  under bed boxes, 1 -36 quart and 1 - 96 quart box are all empty. There are also no laundry baskets, boxes or bags of yarn in the storage room. That is about 25% less yarn than last time I went through my stash. The big secret that I don't want anyone to tell John about is that there is no more yarn in the storage room. By the way I have the storage room on his honey do list, but I already finished most of it with Kayla's help.

Since that did not take as much time as I had planned in the garage, we went on to the sewing room and organized that. I see running a vacuum cleaner through that room when my body stops yelling at me for doing so much cleaning in one fail swoop.

I also found enough yarn for about a dozen more scrappy hats. I also found 3 baby blankets in progress. I must have been meant to do this today because someone tweeted me about some baby blankets half way through the cleaning and 2 wip's are suitable for the project.

Well I think it is time for me to kick up my feet and rest before the boy gets home from school. So enjoy your families.