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January 28, 2010, a Thursday
Elephant Butte Lake State Park (South Monticello), New Mexico, USA
— Downselected images on this windy day

J's Beef Stew for the Crockpot

Note: This is for a 5-quart crockpot, which is larger than the usual. Cut down the proportions if you have a smaller crockpot.
  • 1 lb beef stew meat, cut in 1-inch cubes
  • 1-1/2 cups carrots, sliced
  • 2 ribs celery with tops, chopped
  • 5 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 3 tomatoes, diced, or 1 can (14-1/2 oz) diced tomatoes
  • 1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
  • 1 (10-3/4 oz) can cream of mushroom soup (can use 98% fat-free)
  • 1 packet Lipton onion soup mix
  • 1 tbs seasoned salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 cup milk
  • 3 tbs corn starch
Put all ingredients but the milk and corn starch in the crockpot. Add water to within 1 inch of the top. Cover and cook on high for 8-10 hours. About 1/2 hour before your meal, put the milk into a plastic container with a tight-fitting lid. Add the corn starch. Cover with the lid. Shake until the corn starch is thoroughly dissolved. Add to the stew and stir. Continue to cook until heated through and thickened.

Serve with homemade whole wheat bread.
We took it easy this morning. After breakfast, I selected and processed four images for a blog entry and J started to make her beef stew.

I had lunch around 12:10 and then worked up a blog entry. I returned to performing the final downselect and file renaming of images from Alaska.

Andy Baird came over for dinner around 6:20 of J's beef stew and some of his home-baked bread. The bread was made with King Arthur Harvest Grains Blend, and it was nice and chewy — mmm. (His bread recipe is in his Eureka! package.) He also brought home-made ginger cookies for dessert that were delicious. Andy left around 8:45 and I finished the dishes.

We watched an episode of Desperate Housewives on DVD.