On the menu today

Today is a cold, wintery day with clouds in the sky and looking like it could snow at any moment. I had several alteration/clothing fitting appointments in Dodge this morning, but decided with the icy roads to cancel and stay home. It's the perfect day to bake or cook anyway!

For some reason this week I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen this week. I always spend some time in the kitchen everyday fixing meals, but this week I've been in here more than just meal time. And you guessed it - that's where I am right at the moment. I'm digitizing an embroidery design while waiting for the meat to brown.

Tuesday I baked brownies and had the big chex mix fiasco. Then Thursday evening was our local quilt guild meeting and the officers are responsible for cooking the soup supper. As part of the officer team, I baked four dozen bread rolls and cooked chicken for chicken noodle soup to put in the crock pot for that evening.

As I was digging around in the freezer for chicken, I also found some steak hidden deep inside that still had Mom's handwriting on it. It never fails; I think I have gone through our two freezers downstairs several times, and I still find food stored away I didn't know was there.

Mom was so resourceful and excellent about buying things on sale and saving them for future use. Did you know that it was only this summer that I've had to buy toilet paper since the year 2000? Mom had enough toilet paper stored in this house for seven years! Yes, I'm not kidding; seven years!

Anyway, back on subject - the steaks have been in the freezer for quite a while, so I cut up and cooked about half of the meat on Thursday and made a large crock pot full of beef stew yesterday. It smelled wonderful and was perfect for a cold day! Even the DSL delivery person who brought some boxes yesterday could smell it as he stepped inside the front door.

And for dinner today, I have the remainder of the steak chopped up and cooking in the crock pot for Baked Steak Deluxe. Throw the meat, mushroom soup, a few spices and some water in the crock pot, cook for a couple hours, cook some rice right before mealtime and dinner is ready! Yummy!

Then my plan for this afternoon is to bake some Christmas candy, like peanut clusters, chocolate haystacks, chocolate carmel turtles and maybe even some fudge. It already smells so good in the house and it's only going to smell better!!! :)