War is hell, and so is cleaning a slow cooker!

I must have started to adjust to the time change as I "slept in" Thursday until 5:00 AM. Rather than try and fall back asleep, I got up, made some coffee and then made some breakfast.

I scrambled three eggs and topped them with hot sauce (my favorite way to eat scrambled eggs). Then I put together the ingredients for my slow cooker dinner tonight.

I took a pound of beef stew meat (I have a LOT of beef stew meat left) and cut all the bigger chunks to match the smaller chunks. That went into the slow cooker (I'm using the round, smaller one, BTW) along with a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, a 1/4 cup of water and 1/2 cup of sliced onions. Then I mixed in a can of condensed golden mushroom soup and turned it on "Low." I'm making a version of beef stroganoff.

Sidebar: Hopefully, this will be my last use of soup in the slow cooker. I happened to see a cookbook listed in "Jessica's Cookbooks" (where I buy all my cookbooks) called "Not your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes." These are supposed to be recipes that use fresh ingredients cooked in a slow cooker. I'll let you know if it's worth it.

On a similar note, there are some things I think you absolutely NEED condensed soup for, like my Mom's Tuna and Peas and that much maligned holiday classic, the green bean casserole.

Weather-wise, the wind remained strong but the temperatures have really dropped. Speaking of the wind, the news this morning said 35,000 homes were without power this morning, due to wind-related problems (fallen trees, etc.).

For a change, I went straight home at lunch time.

Back at work, we all went to the windows in the afternoon. At 3:45 PM it began to snow. It was coming down pretty hard and, while it didn’t stick to the ground, it did begin to stick on the cars.

The snow did melt before we all left for home. But, when I checked the weather at 6:00 PM, there was more predicted for the evening and night time hours (sigh).

When I got home, I turned the slow cooker to “Warm” and began my nightly stuff (just putzing, but no projects – it was a long day at work).

Carla called around 6:30 PM. It was good to hear her voice! We talked about a lot of stuff and then said our goodbyes.

Then it was time to finish my dinner. I had a panic attack when I found I didn’t have any wide egg noodles (beef stroganoff on top of pasta? Yikes!!) But I found some of those Kluski noodles, so I made them instead.

I had bought some Brussels sprouts on a whim at Meijer’s and they were looking a bit sad, so I peeled off the outer leaves, cut each one in half and boiled them for my side.

Just before the noodles were done I stirred four ounces of cream cheese into the slow cooker. I also threw in a handful of fresh flat leaf parsley (my idea) to freshen up the dish. Then I plated it.

I put butter and salt on the Brussels sprouts and put the mock beef stroganoff on top of the noodles. I wandered in to watch more of the Vietnam war in HD (the History channel or something has like six hour-long episodes that I taped – I’m up to the Tet Offensive in 1968).

Was it really beef stroganoff? Of course not! But was it a tasty way to use up stewing beef? Definitely!

I fell asleep around 10:00 PM. When I woke up to go to the bathroom, I put away the leftovers, filled the slow cooker insert with water to soak, shut off all the lights and went to bed for real.