A few nights ago when we were still confined to indoors because of the ice/snow that lingered on the ground, (don’t be misled by the negative words, I loved this past week as it gave me excuse for staying in and baking until I ALMOST ran out of butter and eggs) The thoughts of beef stew just kept going through my mind. I had ordered something I had not ordered before with my grocery order so found the stew meat in the freezer and went to work! Normally, for some reason when I make soup or stew it seems like I use chicken and chicken broth but because I had ordered this new item, I decided to try something new. I shared a little bit of the stew with a friend that came to help me repair a leg on a antique chest that broke when I was rearranging furniture the day before. Even he said he had not had a beef stew that he loved as much as this one and both Randy and I agreed that this was some of the best stew I had ever made. And we owe it all to this new ingredient and trying something different.

As we sat and enjoyed the stew, I was reminded of the vegetable beef soup we used to have when I was in elementary and it was then that I began to love having Fritoes with it instead of crackers. So that’s exactly what I did the other night. I topped it with Fritos and Randy used his crackers. We were both happy campers!

1 lb of stew meat chopped up into tiny pieces,

1 small onion, chopped

3 medium size carrots, sliced

1/2 green bell pepper cut up (optional as I know some people don’t like bell pepper or they have trouble digesting it)

2 celery sticks sliced

3 medium size potatoes cut in small cubes

1 teas thyme

1-2 teas diced garlic or 1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teas Lawrys Seasoning salt

1 14.5 oz can of petite cut tomatoes

2 tablespoons of beef stock (pictured below the type and brand)

2-3 cans of water depending on how many veggies you have in crock pot but enough to completely cover them

pepper to taste. no additional salt will probably be needed as the beef stock has salt plus the Lawrys

Brown the meat in a little Oil and butter (yes butter) and cook until meat is no longer pink. set aside

chop and cut veggies and add to crockpot with the tomatoes, water and beef stock! add seasonings and meat!

Turn Crockpot on high for 2 hrs then check to be sure you do not need to add additional water . Turn crockpot on low and continue cooking until veggies are done! This beef stock added amazing flavor and cutting up the stew meat into small pieces allowed the stew meat to be so tender.

Avenida is hosting a breast cancer awareness breakfast for the ladies here tomorrow! When I was ask to make cookies for it, I responded with a quick YES and ordered the needed cookie cutter immediately! Well, I am so thankful I started the baking yesterday just in case of any last minute necessary changes! My pink ribbon cookies ended up looking like the Easter bunny so they immediately went in the trash! trying to figure out what to do, I opted to make some homemade sugar cookies instead of the packaged sugar cookie mix I tried in the first place! this recipe turned out so so good, I ended up making another batch after sampling (ok i did more than sample. i had 4, thus the need to make more dough)

The recipe is from an old cookbook i have had since the 70’s. and it was so easy and tasted so good, it is now my favorite sugar cookie recipe! it’s actually one of those recipes you can take a stick of butter out of the fridge for an hour and an egg and then mix it up and have cookies within 30 minutes. if you choose you can substitute the vanilla extract for almond extract. this time I use the vanilla .

a friend dropped by last night to drop off candy we are collecting for the Prestonwood pregnancy center! i gave her a few of the cookies for her to snack on for her drive home. When she got home, she texted me to tell me how delicious the cookies were! So if you’re looking for a great old-fashioned sugar cookie that’s easy to make make, try this one. I think you’ll be very pleased!

*** only used about 1/4th cup of milk. did not need the whole 1/2 cup!

***notice the change of the amount of milk above in my post!

Bunny Cookies. (saving the cookie cutter for Easter

Signs & Taste of Fall
Caramel pumpkin spice rice crispy treats:

Today certainly doesn’t feel like Fall, but when I looked out over our balcony and saw that hay and pumpkins had been delivered out front, it spurred me on to think “what can I make today that taste and makes me think that Fall is here?” And then I remembered that our daughter, Christi, texted me something that she and our granddaughter Kenley made last week that sounded like the perfect Fall snack that possibly wouldn’t send us to ER with sugar overload! I have to admit that I’m not a huge rice crispy fan, but because this recipe had a layer of melted caramel in it, I figured that it might win me over! And win me over it did! Admitting that I cut 3 pieces to place on a plate for a picture, telling my self that after taking the picture, I would just put the 3 pieces back in the pan to share with our grandson tonight at dinner! Two of the pieces didn’t make it back in the pan, nor did the first piece I cut to get out the following three for the picture!
My name is trudy and I’m now a pumpkin spice caramel rice crispyholic. These are delicious and took all of 15 min to make! Beware that you will end up running to store to buy more marshmallows, caramels and rice crispies to make anothe batch after you have devoured the first pan!

Caramel Pumpkin Spice Rice crispy Treats!

6 cups rice crispies
1 package caramel bits or individually wrapped caramels (I used the bits and followed directions on back in melting them)
5 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
3 tables butter
2 tsp pumpkin spice seasoning
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Melt caramel bits with 2 tablespoons water to pan and melt over low heat stirirmg often. While caramels are melting
In small pan, Melt butter over low heat in another pan, adding the pumpkin pie spice seasoning and vanilla! Stir until combined and add marshmallows to pan. When marshmallow mixture is all melted and combined, pour over the rice crispies and stir until well mixed. Put half of the marshmallow mixture and a 9 inch square ² pan that you have sprayed with Pam then pour the caramel mixture over this bottom layer evenly distributing it over the crispies, then top with remaining rice crispy mixture.
It was easier to spray my fingers with Pam before trying to put the rice crispy treat mixture into the pan and then over the caramel layer ! Worked like a charm!
Sprinkler fall sprinkles over the top!
Made a pig out of myself but you can forget that part!!

Funeral Sandwiches…. No they dont kill you , ( well maybe if you ate them everyday the cholestrol might) but Because we love Funeral sandwiches, I took them to a social here where we live. They are called Funeral sandwiches because they were often served at funeral gatherings since the recipe makes so many. Taken from Southern Living Magazine:
So here is what I did and everyone loved them.�*There are made with Hawaiian rolls which come in packages of 12 or 24! I made 24. Cut the rolls horizontal and lay the top of the rolls to the side. �Melt 2 sticks of butter. Add a heaping tablespoon of mustard and 3 tablespoons of honey. Using a small yellow onion, chop it very small and saute in the butter honey mixture. Stir for about 5 min. Brush the inside of roll with butter mixture and then place slices of ham over the rolls and then cover ham with cheese slices. (Recipe calls for swiss but i used provolone). Place top on rolls. Brush tops of rolls with the butter mixture. Because I had Everything but the Bagel seasoning, I sprinkled that over the top of the buttered rolls before baking them. Place the pan of rolls in a preheated 350 oven for 15-18 min. I covered the rolls with foil the first 10 min and then continued baking for the remaining 5 min until i saw that the cheese was melted. Serve warm.
Makes 24 sandwiches!

Because I had bought some Phyllo sheets last week to make a Portuguese pastry I had seen on TV I had a few sheets of the dough left over! (Next week I will again make that new recipe as we both fell in Love with the Pastel De Nara and will video making it) Randy was wanting a blueberry pie so I decided to do a little something different. Melted a half stick of butter and after separating several of the phyllo sheets, I proceeded to use a pastry brush and coat the sheets in melted butter!

Sprayed a pan with Pam and placed about 4 of the buttered phyllo sheets in the pan! Placed almost the whole can of blueberry pie filling over the sheets of dough. Sprinkled about 1/4 cup of granulated sugar over pie filling and proceeded to cover the filling with another 2 sheets of dough! Brushed the top of the two sheets with more butter and placed the remaining 2 sheets of dough, brushed more butter on top and sprinkled with a little granulated sugar. Folded the edges over to form a pocket! Baked this in preheated 375 oven for 25 min. Allowed it to cool for about 15 min and sprinkled some powdered sugar over the top. The blueberry pastry came out so crispy and buttery, it melted in our mouths! Was a new way to have blueberry “pie” that we will do this again with different fillings!

A sweet friend called yesterday and ask if we were home of which I replied that we were! So in a few minutes she walked down with a Costco rotisserie chicken! She thought we might just like one so she bought us one! Tonight (as I had made 5 bags of chicken from that one Costco chicken, to use for various meals), I thought chicken pot pie sounded good! Randy and I had gone to the store this morning to get a new blender as mine broke yesterday so we needed a new one for our fruit smoothies we have for breakfast some mornings.

But, since we were at the store several other items just caught our eyes so our trip to get a $40 blender cost us about $143 by the time we walked down several aisles! Well since I had bought a small can of Crescent rolls, it was just so easy to put together. This recipe was made up on the spot but it turned out to be so flavorful and just had so much more flavor than the ones I had made before!

Ingredients:

1/2 chopped onion

1 large celery stem diced

1/2 of 1 diced red pepper

I had a half of a zucchini in fridge so diced it up small (we don’t like peas so this was the “green” replacement tonight)

1 large carrot sliced thin

2 small yellow potatoes chopped up small

Since the heart Dr fussed at me Monday I have been told to put the butter away and cook with olive oil for a while! But she did tell me I could still bake with butter just cook with EVVO. So I added these chopped veggies to a little olive oil with grilled veggie seasoning. Parsley, garlic powder, pepper, sage and a little paprika. sautéed them for about 5 min! Then Poured about 1/3 cup of veggie broth in the pan and put the lid on. Cooked until veggies were tender. Added

1 can of cream of chicken , 1 cup of chopped rotisserie chicken and put lid on and cooked another 10 min over low heat! Preheated oven to 375!

Placed the flat crescent rolls across the top and baked for 15 to 16 minutes until the top of the crescent rolls was golden brown! Served this with garlic spinach and Caesar salad!