Mama's Classic Beef Stew

The weather has finally cooled off. This afternoon I stopped by a local farm to buy a few things. I bought a few tomatoes that look and smell like real tomatoes. These are the big beefsteak tomatoes that weigh a pound a piece and make for awesome tomato sandwiches (yes, I'm a hillbilly at heart). They had "candy onions" which I suppose are so sweet one could mistake them for, well, candy. But what they are known for is their sweet corn, picked fresh each morning. I casually asked, "So, how long do you think the corn season's going to last?" I was taken aback when she answered, "We'll be done next weekend. With the summer being so hot for so long, all of the corn decided to ripen at the same time." Talk about a shock! We usually get corn well into September. I suppose all good things must come to an end.

With the change in weather, we've been enjoying a little bit of fall food this week. Yes, it's comfort food. There's nothing a piping hot bowl of good soup can't fix.

Besides tasting fabulous, the one thing that's guaranteed with this recipe is a home filled with the wonderful aroma of autumn. I think it's the pinch of ground cloves that does it. Oh! Oh! Oh! If you like beef stew, you will love this recipe. If you don't like beef stew, make this recipe just so your house can smell yummy!

Mama's Classic Beef Stew

What you will need:

2 pounds fat-trimmed boned beef chuck (or other cut suitable for stewing)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 to 5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 sweet onion (about a cup) peeled and sliced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
3 (14.5 oz) cans beef broth
1 pound thin-skinned new potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
1 pound carrots, peeled and thinly sliced crosswise
3 stalks celery, rinsed and thinly sliced
8 ounces small boiling onions (buy frozen to save time)

1. Cut beef into 1 1/2 - to 2-inch chunks. Put flour in paper bag. Add beef and shake to coat with flour.

2. Pour 3 tablespoons oil into 5 to 6 quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat. When hot, add half the meat; turn pieces as necessary until well browned on all sides, about 8 to 10 minutes total. Transfer to a bowl. If pan is dry, add 1 to 2 more tablespoons oil. Add remaining beef and any extra flour in bag; repeat to brown pieces on all sides. Return all meat and juices to pan.

3. Add small amount of beef broth to bottom of pan, scraping up browned bits. Add remaining beef broth (all 3 cans) then add sliced onion, minced garlic, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt, sugar, paprika, pepper and ground cloves to pan. Bring mixture to a simmer. Cover pan tightly, reduce heat to low, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until beef is tender, one and a half to two hours.

4. Increase heat to high and add potatoes, carrots, celery, and boiling onions to pan. Once the mixture comes to a low boil, reduce heat to low and continue cooking, covered, until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes longer.

Note: I let the veggies cook about an hour since we like them very tender. For leftovers, serve over cooked white rice. Thanks for the idea, sister-in-love, Mildred!

Enjoy!

Gone Fishin'

I thought that sounded better than Gone Firin'

The weather finally cooled off enough that we made a fire on the patio. Mr. Wonderful made it so our toes were kept quite toasty. Actually, Caleb thought he might have melted the bottom of his flip flops! It was too dark, so I couldn't tell. I'm sure they'll be all right. I came in because I was actually getting a little chilly. Such is life as a woman. One minute too hot, the next minute too cold.

It's nights like this that makes me so happy our kids love hangin' with us. We all sat back there around the fire together for several hours, just talking, reminiscing, hearing camp stories. Rachel asked us if she had a lisp. What? "One of the girls at camp told me I had a lisp. Then she asked another girl if she thought I had a lisp and she said yea." No, Rachel, you do not have a lisp. That's just how girls are sometimes. Mean. I am so thankful that was their worst.

The windows are open. Should make for a great night of sleeping.

Night night, all.

Mama's Got the Magic!

A lot of people have asked about the white pillow case that was sent to camp with Caleb (his choice, not mine!). Remember this post? Well, I took a few pictures of him holding the pillow after he got back home, but for some reason, the dirt didn't show-up. The pillowcase actually looked clean! Here's a picture I took with a little hankie I tucked inside his sleeping bag as a surprise. Even though he had an extra pillowcase to use, he chose not to. I guess that's what happens when you sleep in a tipi filled with Indians!



Because I'm one of those mothers, I spritzed my perfume on this little hankie (you know, to remind him of home), put it in a baggie with a love note, then hid it in the bottom of his sleeping bag. I know. I know. Probably a bad idea...I don't think he'll ever forget it though. He said he kept thinking there was a tag inside the sleeping bag that kept sticking to his leg. It annoyed him so much he finally reached down inside and found the baggie with my note and the hankie. It must have been OK for him to find my little surprise. He tucked the hankie inside his pillowcase where it stayed the entire time he was at camp. Unlike the coffee container, I don't think he shared this with his friends.



These are Rachel's favorite PJ bottoms. She wore these when the girls slept on the beach one night. They had to go around the island looking for firewood. The color of the soil is quite lovely. Rich black dirt. Not such a good thing to get ground into the hems of baby pink polyester fluff.

But NEVER FEAR...



Mama's got the magic!



And this is the collection of filthy socks. No, they weren't walking around outside without shoes on (mostly). Remember, Caleb's tipi had a dirt floor. He said he tried to balance himself while putting his shoes on so his clean socks wouldn't touch the ground, but it didn't always work out that way. Then the inside of his shoes got dirty which just ground the dirt in the bottom of the socks all the more. Even though Rachel was inside a cabin with wooden floors, the girls would bring dirt in on the bottoms of their shoes and, of course, the dirt found its way onto the bottom of their socks too. Rachel was known as Cinderella. It was her job to sweep the floor of the cabin every day.

But NEVER FEAR...



Mama's got the magic!

Somehow I didn't take a picture of the pristine white pillowcase after it had been laundered, but trust me, it turned out sparkling white.

Recipe for Mama's Got the Magic

What you will need:

Washing machine filled with very hot water and:

1 cap full of Liquid Cheer
1 scoop of Biz
1 cup of Clorox Bleach

For extra dirty white clothes (like the socks above), I reset the agitator on the washing machine to run through three times. The water was brown just before it went to the rinse cycle. As you can see, even the dirtiest socks came out clean. I have washed grass green socks this way and even they come out clean.

For Rachel's PJ bottoms, I sprayed them with Shout! then sprinkled Biz directly on the hems. I then sprinkled the Biz with a little bit of water, then let the PJs sit in the sink for an hour or so. I scrubbed them by hand and then rinsed them out. Then I just washed them with Liquid Cheer and Biz (no Clorox) with similar clothes. Even I was surprised by how clean they came out. And Rachel was very, very happy!

And just for the record, no, I don't usually take pictures of our dirty laundry. I knew this would make for a great blog post and a valuable recipe for someone out there stuck with dirty white socks!

Yours Truly,

Serenity

Caleb at Long Lake


The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.

Psalm 24:1

Something I'm thinking about today,

Moose Munch Madness

The kids are home from camp! I won't bombard everyone with daily camp stories, but I do intend on sprinkling them throughout my blog posts in the coming weeks. I probably have enough to keep me writing for a year!

While I'm waiting to get all of the pictures uploaded from both kids' cameras, I thought I'd share a funny story Caleb shared with us while he was unpacking.

See that container? I pulled that out of my cupboard and gave it to Caleb to store the digital camera he was taking to camp. I figured it was the only way I could be sure the camera stayed dry if everything else got soaked by rain or a flip of a canoe.

This is one of several containers I have used to store coffee in for a number of years. This one in particular had the least amount of coffee in it, that's why it was chosen. The coffee was Moose Munch by Harry and David. Moose Munch happens to be the biggest seller at Harry and David's. And for a good reason...dark and nutty, with notes of caramel and chocolate.

Plastic has this way of holding smells, don't you think? That can be good and bad. In this case, it was good. Before packing the container in his duffel bag, I had Caleb put his nose in it. He sniffed and immediately agreed the smell was fabulous.

After arriving at camp, Caleb pulls out this container to get to the camera. After taking the camera out, he sniffs the container and tells his tribe they have to smell it too. The first guy steps up, puts his nose in and takes a big sniff followed by a very loud "Ahhhhggg!" This reaction prompts the other guys to get in line and put their noses in the container. If that isn't funny enough, Caleb said every single time he got the container out, one of the guys would ask, "Can I take a sniff?" Then everyone would line up and take their turn!

I don't know what it was about the smell of that container that evoked such a reaction in these guys. Was it the caramel? Was it the chocolate? Was it the reminder of their mother at home making a pot of coffee? I don't know. It was something though. Maybe it was nothing more than having an opportunity to smell something that didn't smell like sweat or dirt or the Waldorf!

After hearing Caleb's story, we all sniffed the container and agreed it didn't smell much like Moose Munch anymore. There was just a faint reminder that it once held coffee of some sort. I think all of the yummy smelly particles had been sniffed away!

Who knew a plastic container would have such a hold on a tipi full of Indians! And I can't help but wonder if any of them will retell the story of the container that smelled a little like home. I hope so!

No nose knows better than Yours Truly!

Mama's Granola

I don't know what got me to thinking about granola this afternoon. Maybe it's because school is fast approaching or because fall is just around the corner. This is one of those fabulous recipes I came across a number of years ago. I've tweaked a little here and there and so can you.

I don't know. Don't you think some mini chocolate chips added to the batch after everything has cooled might be yummy?

Mama's Granola

What you will need:

3 cups rolled oats
1 cup slivered almonds
1 cup cashews
3/4 cup shredded sweet coconut
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup (the real stuff)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup craisins

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. In a large bowl combine the oats, nuts, coconut, and brown sugar. In a separate bowl, combine maple syrup, oil, and salt. Combine both mixtures and pour onto two sheet pans. Cook for one hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer to a large bowl. Add craisins and mix until evenly distributed.

And just so you know, I always double this whenever I make it.

Enjoy!

Learning and Growing and Serving

It's kinda hard to believe I took this photo of the big white dry erase board at the end of the school year minutes before Rachel erased it. Rules for negative numbers. Yikes! And here we are once again, school is just around the corner.

We have a tradition of heading outside to a maple tree in the front yard where the kids stand in front of it and have their first day of school pictures taken. It's been amazing to see how the kids have grown and how the tree has grown since 2000!

We usually start school the day after Labor Day, but this year we'll be starting on the following Monday instead. I thought it might be nice to extend summer just a little bit longer! Besides, that's the same week our homeschool co-op begins. This is the first time we'll be attending a co-op. It's almost an hour and a half away from home, but when we sat in on the classes at the end of the year, the kids absolutely loved it. They will be taking classes for apologetics, speech, debate, and art.

This year we'll tackle Omnibus II by Veritas Press, Apologia Physical Science, Teaching Textbooks Algebra, French II, Wordly Wise 8, and IEW's writing program.

We always start our school day by gathering at the kitchen table and praying together and reading scripture. And I am absolutely convinced this is why the past nine years of homeschooling have been absolutely wonderful.

I cannot believe we are about to begin our 10th year of homeschooling! Oh God, that you would go before us once again and bless our time of learning and growing and serving.

Closing with those famous words of the old preacher man I loved dearly, Bob Cook, "Walk with the King today, and be a blessing!"