Weekend Countdown Day 21: 13th Day of Dallas County STAY AT HOME

Today is Sunday, April 5th.  It is important to note this because days are running together, like sands from many beaches placed into one jar. There are distinctions in color, texture, and density at first.  But after awhile, they all start looking the same.  This is especially true for those on a break from work.

Yesterday I took a bike ride.  I went fairly early because I was afraid we would have more rain and I would not be able to get out to ride.  We did, have rain.  It was cold and miserable.  I am hoping to have a few hours again today where I can ride.  I love bike riding.  Of all the types of exercise in the world, it is one of the more enjoyable for me.  Scuba Diving is my number one favorite exercise.  Then comes hiking, and biking is third.  Everything else, is just work.  Everything else I am doing because I know I need to exercise.

In trying to use up some of items in my freezer, I decided yesterday to try and find a good Beef Stew recipe to utilize some stew meat I had purchased on sale a while back.  When I bought it, I think I was going to do Chili.  But I decided once again to search out a Ninja Foodi recipe.  This is the one I landed on.

https://thesaltedpepper.com/beef-stew-ninja-foodi/

In this house, we gave this beef stew a firm two thumbs up.  It was really tasty.  A couple of things to note:

• Once you click on the link above, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page where you have the printed recipe - the upper page is written oddly and hard to follow.  Glad I stayed on the page long enough to notice this.
• The meat I used was still frozen and I ran cold water over it to get the chunks apart for the first step.  Seemed to work out fine.
• I left out the onions because my roommate is allergic. That also seem to work out fine.
• I left out the mushrooms because I forgot them at the store and was not going to go back there.  Also fine.
• Step 8 the calls for a canning jar - did not have one - used a tupperware salad dressing mixer with just the cold stock and flour.  Worked peachy fine.
• And lastly, I could not figure out the Simmer setting... Which setting is simmer to do it on Medium?  So I set it to bake at 250 for 10 minutes which worked.  But hmmm...

For those who do not have wine, the author says you can do it without.  For me, I had used a Cabernet, running low on anything else red, so had a perfect wine to drink with dinner after making the dinner.  

I noted in the comments from a few days back that someone adjusted this to make a chicken stew.  I will be trying that this next week!! I am glad my roommate is always game for my adventures in cooking!  Sandwiches and Cereal are the backups if I make something that is not edible!

I hope everyone has a great day - whether your focus is relaxing, cleaning, art projects, reading, games, puzzles, or maybe even cooking - Enjoy your day!  Positive thoughts and prayers across the nation.  Stay Safe.