Baking

One thing I like about colder weather is getting to bake. We try not to turn the oven on in the warm weather to avoid heating the house. In cold weather, I'm not sure which is better... the warm from the oven or the goodies that come out of it.

Yesterday, I made a stew. It was in the cast iron dutch oven, and boiled so furiously on the stove top on the lowest heat, I thought it was cooking too fast. I put it into the oven at 200*. It had beef from a small steak I found on markdown. I cubed that up, rolled the cubes in seasoned flour, and browned them in olive oil. Then added beef broth, celery, onions, carrots, potatoes, and barley. I had to add some water and beef soup base, as I didn't have much broth.

Dan asked to make banana bread. It was excellent! (Used Chris's recipe from my Food For Fellowship cookbook). Then I had Sam do the math and divide the recipe for Grandma Ruby's Hot Rolls in half. He did great making those, and we baked them in the new Pampered Chef stoneware muffin pan. During the baking of the breads, I took the stew from the oven and let it just sit on the stovetop... cast iron is great at retaining heat! I put it back in between times, and for the last 20 minutes before supper when the rolls baked.

It was soooo good! Hard to quit after just one bowl of soup and one roll.

Maybe Becky should think of doing some baking Wednesday... the high where she lives is supposed to drop from the upper 70*'s into the mid 30*'s. Mr C frets and worries about whether she has the heat hooked up for the winter yet. (I think Dad's may fret more than Mom's do about some things).

I need to go to the library... but I don't know if I can muster up the energy to do it this morning. With three of us working and two cars, we have small windows of opportunity to get errands done. The van is SUPPOSED to be done today. I don't have a lot of confidence in it actually being ready. Mr C will have to inspect it. The same repair shop did the car last year, and after it was 'ready', took another week to fix the things Tom pointed out they missed. Maybe I will make the library, and maybe I will procrastinate!

I checked the cell phone minutes yesterday to be sure we weren't running over time. I have 35 minutes left for the 'month', with the 3rd being the last day of the month. So we cut it pretty close. (feel free to call on Thursday or after, LOL).

I'm thinking I ought to do a "family newsletter"... as I missed doing one last year. I don't have a way to add pictures this year. The last two color ink cartridges I have bought... from totally different sources, have printed three color pages each before running 'empty'. So I think it is the printer. I can't afford to print pictures at that cost! (And I need new grandkid pictures anyway... *hint hint*). Perhaps writing a short family newsletter 'article' would be a good assignment for school today!

Speaking of writing... I know it has been awhile since Daniel has written on his blog. He did write a blog yesterday... and my exciting news from that is: He asked me, "Do you spell (a word) like _______?" and he spelled the word to me correctly! He did that several times!
This is big news because Dan has had so much trouble catching on to spelling. (dyslexia). I did see he had some 'spaces' in words (in stead and to day)... but that is rather minor when I consider the big leap he has made.

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Have a great day!