Hello from my email client! oh, and Beef Stew

It occurred to me as I was thinking about the Holidailies that I thought I had seen a setting on Blogger to be able to send to draft on blogger site using an email address. That is genius!!! It will be so much easier to type away and send off a post like an email. And a lot of times things will just occur to me and I really really want to jot them down but just don’t have the chance, now I can do that! Quickly, easily and efficiently.

So, this is my first test of that setting!

We had an amazing day yesterday. It was cold and we had gotten a lot of snow but mid afternoon it was decided that we had been inside long enough and that we all needed fresh air. So, we bundled up and walked to the little mall across the street. We used our sled and it was so much easier than the stroller. Lea actually enjoyed sitting in it (she does NOT like the stroller, most of the time) and we got so many smiles from passersby that we must have been awfully cute! I would have pictures but we committed one of those sins and forgot to charge the batteries in the camera oops! Here's a pic from last year to make up for it!

We did some shopping and then came back home for naps. I took advantage of the downtime to begin dinner. I made a beef stew* from scratch and it was so delicious! It will be granted a spot in my recipe box for sure! I also opened one of my new bottles of wine (because the stew recipe called for it! ;) ) put Galaxy Christmas on and addressed all my Christmas cards. Now I’m just wondering when is too soon to send them. The first one I get will mean it’s safe to drop them in the mailbox. Then there was family playtime, a bath for me then bedtime stories, bottle and bed. It was a wonderful, suburban cold winter day. The only thing missing was the Christmas tree. SIGH.

* I had picked up some stewing beef on sale (usually Loeb Tracy!) and decided that it was a perfect day for stew and I had all the veggies on hand AND I still had 1/3 of a baguette left that needed to be eaten, oh and the wine ;) So, I searched online and found a recipe that I could work with and the result was delicious! So, for your culinary pleasure, my beef stew recipe:

Beef Stew

· 2 pounds stewing beef
· 1/4 cup butter
· 2 medium onions (chopped)
· 1/4 cup wine (optional - awww really?)
· 1/4 teaspoon thyme
· 1 clove garlic
· salt
· pepper
· 2 carrots (chopped)
· 1 cup peas
· 1 cup celery (chopped)
· 1/4 cup flour

Cube the stewing beef and brown in butter. Add onions and cook until onions are transparent. Add 3 cups water, wine, thyme, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for about 30 minutes. Add carrots, peas, and celery. Simmer for another 20 minutes. Thicken gravy with flour and 1 cup of water. Add more seasonings if desired. Simmer for 5 more minutes.This beef stew recipe will serve 4 to 6.

I made a half batch since I only had 1 lb of stewing beef. I used margarine instead of butter , frozen peas and I added 2 peeled, cubed potatoes. Oh, I also used beef broth in place of the water and added a little more broth when there wasn't enough liquid (totally my fault, I made it early so that it could sit and simmer so the liquid evaporated).