So, I couldn’t help but take pictures when the first snow hit last Wednesday and brag about how beautiful this place is when under a thin blanket of snow.  It only lasted a day before the sun came out to melt it.  Not to worry though, it snowed again, only to be melted again.  And then again a day or two later!  But only to be melted by yesterday’s sun.  Man, I can’t catch a break!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the weather doing nothing but snow, and melt, and snow, and melt, I was tasked with making a dinner with hamburger meat that my grandparents and I hadn’t had before.  (Lucky for me, old people have terrible memories) I went and found a recipe I had saved to my Pinterest and had made once before a while ago; Poor man’s stew!  Great for this chilly weather!  Since I had made it once before, I knew my grandparents would like it, and I knew they wouldn’t remember it.  Win win!

 

Poor Mans Stew:

Ingredients;

*1 lbs. ground beef (browned)

*Potatoes

*1 Onion diced (were not big on onions here, so we left this out)

*Tiny can of tomato paste

*2 cups water

* 1 teaspoon salt

*1 teaspoon onion powder

*1 teaspoon garlic powder

 

I browned the ground beef in a cast iron skillet while I plugged the tiny crockpot in and turned it on low to heat up.

I then added half a bag of baby carrots to the bottom of the crockpot.  (I did this while the meat was still browning just to give it a head start on cooking.)

After the meat was browned, I added it to the crockpot and started scrubbing my homegrown potatoes to add to the crockpot.  I then added that to the top of the ground beef.

Now it was time to add the flavors!  Tomato paste, salt, onion powder, garlic powder, and water soon went in (no onion, as I said before, we decided to leave that out).

I stirred it all up and switched it from low to high.  NOW, the actual recipe says to put it on low for seven hours..  I was kinda on a time crunch and decided that putting it on high for five hours was better suited for my needs.  After all, you’re just cooking the potatoes and carrots, the meat has already been cooked.  Now, just stir every two hours until it’s done.  This was after two hours of cooking on high..

This was after four hours of cooking on high..  Time to stir again!

And finally, after five hours of cooking, this was the finished product!  It was so good, my grandfather had two big bowls!  (This was my tiny bowl, my grandfather had a much bigger bowl)

 

 

 

Rewind two weeks back to the beginning of November.  I was putting all of our outside Halloween decorations into the holiday shed.  Easy enough right?  My grandmother had come out to see how things were going and ask if I needed help.  After politely declining her help, she decided that while I was putting Halloween away, she would look through the Christmas decorations for outside.

Recently, my grandmother had found, and bought, a collapsible Christmas tree in a huge white box.  It was beautiful!  You just hung it up or put it on its stand, and a Christmas tree (lights and ornaments included) popped up!  It was this my grandmother was looking at, when she screamed and ran out of the holiday shed..

Now, this box had been next to my head the entire time I had been putting Halloween away.  In fact, I had been placing stuff on this very box while I moved stuff around in the shed..  So imagine my surprise when my grandmother pulls the box out, lifts the already falling apart lid off, and out pops a possum!  Sadly, that little booger ran back into the holiday shed and we haven’t been able to find him since.  I have been very careful pulling out the Christmas decorations, for fear of finding the possum again.

 

Stay warm, eat healthy, and I hope you don’t find a possum in your Christmas tree!

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