a flash of delight

I had a surprise dentist appt. this morning. It was a surprise because I totally forgot about it until they called yesterday afternoon. Rats! My dentist is about 45 minutes away so it took a big chunk out of the day that I wasn’t planning on. There are several hygeneists in there and only one that I do not like. Her name is Daphne. When I asked who I was scheduled with they said Daphne. Double rats! I swear she hates teeth and wants to see them die. I asked as nicely as I could if I could please, please, PLEASE have someone else… ANYONE else. So they gave me Chris. He was great and I left without dried blood all along my gum line. But by the time I got home my teeth were sore so I took some Aleve. I think I just have really sensitive gums.

Last night I made beef stew. This was pretty ambitious for me but I think it turned out really well! This is the recipe:

Just sprinkle beef with salt and pepper, roll in some flour and brown in
a skillet on the stove.
Put beef in crock pot with some onions and carrots, thyme, a bay leaf,
two whole cloves pushed into one of the onion pieces, and several
garlic cloves. Pour in some port – not sure how much – maybe 1/2 cup?
and about 1/2 cup water.
Cook in crock pot for 5-6 hours on high or longer on low.
When it’s done, pour crock pot contents into an oven proof baking
dish, make some biscuit dough (I just used the instant kind), drop it
over the top and bake for as long the biscuit recipe indicates.
It’s actually more of a beef pot pie – and it was sooo good!

I’m not sure of exact measurements. I used maybe a little more than 2 lbs of beef. And 2 large carrots. Oh and halfway through the cooking I added two big stalks of celery chopped up because I thought it needed some more veg. Just easy on the garlic… 2 cloves is probably plenty.

One of my favorite things about this stew is that it DOESN’T have potatoes. Blech. And the alcohol cooks right out if anyone was wondering. Buying it however was fun. I spent 20 minutes in the liquer section too embarrassed to ask for help until some nice guy took pity on me.

Oh and I totally blew my no-shopping-this-month goal. I found out last week my car needed new brakes. So after I shelled out the money for that I was mad at being forced to spend my money on something I DIDN’T want and so I needed to rebel and spend my money on something I DID want. I understand that this isn’t exactly logical but there you go. I returned a couple tops to Old Navy that I didn’t end up giving for Christmas and got 2 tops for myself. So really I only spent $6.99 but still.

Now that I’m on a cooking roll I am looking through my cookbooks to find something else yummy!