Crock pot comfort food: Sauerbraten

I don’t know about you all.. But I’ve had enough of this winter already. We had almost a foot and a half of snow on Wednesday and schools were closed Wednesday and Thursday (and lemme tell y’all schools around here aren’t too quick to give out snow days) I haven’t seen this much snow in one day since I was a kid and after a day of looking at it I’ve had enough.

But this cold, nasty weather makes me long for comfort food, the past few days I’ve been craving a heaping bowl of sauerbraten with big fat egg noodles like my grandma used to make.. Just the smell has me 6 years old again standing in my grandma’s kitchen stirring the pot of stew.. Mmm!

If you’ve never had sauerbraten, you must try it because it’s absolutely wonderful! This recipe uses the crock pot, but you can easily make it on the stove top.


Ingredients

2 lbs beef stew meat, 1-inch pieces
1 cup chopped onion (2 medium)
1 cup beef broth
1/2 cup cider vinegar
2 dried bay leaves
6 cups uncooked medium egg noodles (12 oz.)
3/4 cup crushed gingersnap cookies (about 15)
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Directions

1. In 3-1/2 to 4-quart slow cooker, mix beef, onions, broth, vinegar and bay leaves.

2. Cover; cook on Low heat setting 7 to 9 hours
.
3. About 15 minutes before serving, cook noodles as directed on package. Remove bay leaves from beef mixture. Stir in crushed cookies and brown sugar.

4. Cover; cook on Low heat setting 15 minutes longer or until mixture is bubbly and thickened. Serve beef mixture over noodles, sprinkle with parsley.

Home Made Vanilla Extract... Want some?

I never really understood what the big deal was with home made vanilla extract was, yea, I know that anything labeled Imatation is pure crap, and real vanilla extract was the good stuff that cost like $7 for what.. 2 ounces? Well.. I went all out and decided to try this myself and yea, it's ready. I used it for all my Christmas cookies and a few weeks ago I gave a jar to one of my attorneys who was amazed at not only how easy it was, but what a true difference it makes in whatever you bake.

Well.. Now 2 lucky readers will each be getting one 4 ounce mason jar of Home Made Vanilla Extract straight from my kitchen to yours.

You don't have to do anything special to enter, just stop bye and say hi, share a recipe.. whatever you want.. just post it as a comment on this post and that's it, you're entered.

Contest starts now and ends on Tuesday, February 9th.

I'll pick 2 winners using the Random number generator, so enter often.

Oh yea, this totally sucks

So Wednesday morning I woke up with a stomach bug. You know it's bad when you're up at 5:30 am feeling like someone is stepping on your stomach. I ran through my head what I ate tuesday, coffee, dry cheerios for lunch because I wasn't feeling like eating anything else, then I made macaroni with meat sauce for dinner.. nothing out of the ordinary, but oh dear lord.. not this. Just for the record, I don't throw up. I don't. Unless.. I've got it bad.. and I had it BAD, real bad. Lets not discuss the migraine on top of it all either.

I managed to drive the kid to school, despite his protests that he should really stay home with me because I shouldn't be driving when I kept tossing my cookies, I assured him I took a 'Pepto' pill, it was a 2 minute drive and I'd be fine (I was) I threw some sweats on (because no, I will not go anywhere in my pajamas), Grabbed my darkest sunglasses (because, I do have to keep my dignity and I didn't have a speck of makeup on, lol) dropped him off at school, stopped at the supermarket and got a big bottle of ginger ale and then I drove back home. I grabbed his warm blanket in my way back to my room because I was freezing despite the sweats and thermal lined sweatshirt I had on and I climbed back into bed, where I stayed all.day.long.

I didn't eat a thing all day, but I downed almost a whole bottle of ginger ale. I had a piece of dry toast around 8pm and went back to bed. Yesterday I managed to get myself back to work and I still had the throbbing headache, but I couldn't bring myself to drink any coffee or eat anything, I just kept a bottle of ginger ale at my side all day. When I got home I hesitantly ate 2 slices of dry toast, a small cup of tea and I was fine. but I have no appetite at all and it sucks. I haven't been this sick in more than 5 years, and now, 3 days later, I'm still not quite over it. Today I had a handful of dry cheerios and a half a small bottle of ginger ale I've got a bowl of plain white rice sitting here in front of me on my desk, but I just don't want it. I've got no appetite, no tummy growls.. nada.

What I want is a chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting.. but I know that's not right.

Well, maybe I do have Roaster Phobia

It’s not a big deal. I just really don’t like to cook a whole chicken. Sure, I’ll do it once in a while, but it’s not something I enjoy cooking. I’ll rinse the chicken and separate the skin from the flesh and mush in some seasoned butter, salt and pepper the inside and toss in some orange quarters and it always comes out good.. But once it’s all been said and done the leftovers usually wind up in the trash after a few days because nobody wants to be picking at the bits. Sure I could make Chicken salad or soup, sometimes I do, most often I don’t. My Grandma roasted a chicken for Sunday dinner every other Sunday, it was her thing and she did it great.. But then again there were quite a few mouths to feed and at my house, more often than not it’s just the two of us at home.

Honestly, I’m more of a Thigh person.. I like to season them really good and roast them, make these or I’ll cook them in the crock pot, which is what I did just this past Saturday in a way that I’ve never done before.. I took a packet of McCormick marinade (Mojo Lime) and mixed it according to the directions on the packet.. And tossed the marinate mix over the raw chicken (Skin removed of course) in the crock pot and cooked it overnight.. OMG, it was so good! With some egg noodles and a salad it was a great Sunday lunch. I also like to take a can of diced tomatoes, a can of black olives and toss that all in the crock pot & cook it overnight and at the very end stir in some capers.. That is absolutely phenominal!

WHOA!!

First I’d like to apologize for being MIA for so long, wow, sorry I didn’t realize it’s been this long. Shame on me! Christmas came and went and kicked my in the butt hard this year, I was unprepared in the worst way.