It Happens: Weekend Adventures!

Sorry for the delay... I had a post all ready when I deleted it by accident. Then I went out of town and didn't have a chance to post my weekend fun until now!

My friend brought me these beautiful Tulips!!!

On Friday, some very dear friends came to visit me in Waco! It was so much fun to catch up over some wine and food. I made my mom's hearty beef stew with homemade biscuits for them, as well as a cheese and apple tray, veggies, and cookies. In case you are interested in the stew and biscuit recipes, here they are! And trust me, they are very easy.

Hearty Beef Stew

Ingredients

2 lbs Lean trim stew beef (yes, the package will actually say something like 'great for stew')

6 carrots, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces

4 stalks celery, cut into 1 inch pieces

6 medium baking potatoes, peeled and cubed*

1 bag of small red potatoes, cubed*

*use either kind of potato (I used red potatoes)

1/2 - 1 large onion, cut into medium sized pieces

Spices

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Dash of nutmeg

8 cups (2 boxes) beef broth (I bought Kitchen Basics, unsalted)

Place all ingredients in large pot that has a lid.

Cover ingredients with beef broth and add spices.

Cover pot with lid and bring to a boil over medium heat.

Reduce heat and uncover for about an hour.

Recover and simmer for about 3 hours.

Once in a while, taste broth and add spices as needed.

After 3 hours....

In a seperate bowl, mix 1/4 cup cornstartch or Wondra flour to 1/2 cup water.

Mix together with wire whisk.

Gradually add mixture to stew while stirring constantly until thickened.

I had to do this last part twice to get the stew thick enough.

Add more pepper before serving.

Mmmmmmm!!! So Meaty!

This stew is so easy to make. It's virtually impossible to over cook because the longer it cooks, the more tender the ingredients. Serve the stew with these biscuits...

Biscuits

Perfect for soaking up stew.

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons baking powder

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter or margarine

3/4 cups of milk ( I use skim)

Add dry ingredients to bowl.

Use a pastry mixer to grind in butter.

Pastry Mixer.

Once the mixutre is a grainy texture, add milk.

Mix dough together with hands.

Sprinkle additional flour on dough if too sticky.

Shape dough into biscuits and place on greased pie pan.

Bake at 450 degrees for 8 minutes.

Biscuit before baking.

Along with the stew and biscuits, I had my cheese/apple tray (you know I used honeycrisp apples lol), my veggies and my cookies. Oh, and of course, wine, wine, wine! Here's a quick tip for the cookies... I used pre-packaged dough to make a few different kinds. Instead of cooking the dough on a cookie sheet, I used a cupcake pan that had mini cupcake holes. The cookies turned out amazing!