Poor Man's Crockpot Beef Ragu

 Chad made this Poor Man's Crockpot Beef Ragu last week and he was telling me how good it was. I made it yesterday for today and it really is good.

The best part: Ever since I met Vince, over 30 year ago, he's told me that every Sunday they ate meatballs and sauce. Apparently they saved the leftover meat during the week - roast beef, steak, pork - whatever, and that went into the sauce. I've tried all kinds of recipes and nothing was ever close to what his dad made. It's kinda hard when I never even tasted it and Vince isn't 100% sure if he even remembers it after all these years.

So . . I made this recipe.

Chad was cooking his in the Instant Pot so he made a few changes.

I made a few changes even though I cooked mine in the crockpot.

1. I had pork . . I call it backbone but I think everyone else calls it some kind of boneless ribs. I cut that into good sized chunks, seasoned it and browned it in beef tallow on the stove. I used this because it was in my fridge and needed to be cooked and my chuck roast was on the smaller side.

2. I also cut the chuck roast into chunks, seasoned it and browned it.

3. I had a bit of ground beef left over from yesterday's grilled hamburgers. Our ground meat is in 1-1/2 pound packages so I usually make hamburgers for us and then use the rest for a meatloaf. Because I'll be gone a couple of days next week, I made extra burgers for Vince to have so I probably had about 1/2 pound of ground beef left. I browned it and added it to the crockpot.

4. I didn't have red chili peppers so I chopped a couple of jalapeno peppers and sauteed them along with the celery in onion in the leftover drippings from Browning the meat.

5. Since I was cooking it yesterday for today, I cooked it (crockpot) on high for 6 hours, then let it all cool, put the whole crockpot container in the fridge overnight, then scooped off as much of the hardened fat at the top, put it back on low and cooked it for several more hours so it would be ready for lunch today.

6. This morning I took it out of the fridge, scooped out all the hardened fat, put it back in the crock pot for about 6 more hours on high. I did add a bit of water.

Before it was done, I decided this would be a good day to make egg pasta so I made that.

I ended up with two nests on two trays for the freezer, and plenty of pasta for us for our meal.

The first bite Vince took, he said "This is as close as any sauce has come to tasting like I remember my dad's sauce tasting!" I was so happy to hear that. I had not been trying to make his dad's sauce and accidentally did it.

Hopefully I can repeat this . . just maybe not every Sunday!

A Little Italian Cream Cake

 Making bread is fun for me. I don't mind making pies but I love eating pies so I gladly make those. I will occasionally make cookies but cakes . . I do not like making cakes. I don't like making icing and I don't like putting it on the cake. So, I rarely make cakes.

There's a lady in a neighboring town and I've seen her cakes on Facebook. She has one that 5 or 6" round and I ordered one - an Italian Cream Cake.

Vince was a little frustrated with me. They are not cheap but neither are the ingredients to make a cake like that and I'm not going to make it and I wanted it so . . what's a girl to do? Vince is perfectly happy with the marked down, past the best buy date cakes from Walmart.

He ended up saying it was probably the best cake he's ever had. We each had one small slice. I saved two slices for tomorrow, sliced the rest and wrapped it - two slices per package wrapped in plastic wrap and then all stuck in a ziplock bag and put it into the freezer. Counting what we had today, what we'll have tomorrow and enough for us each to have a slice three more times, that's 10 servings of cake. 

I think even Vince will agree that it wasn't a bad deal. I may order one for Thanksgiving - a carrot cake! We won't get them often - neither of us needs that much cake but that Italian Cream Cake was so delicious!

Finger Update

I'm hoping this is the end of the finger story.  At this point in my life, I think what scares me the most about aging is the medical care. I am 100% sure there are places where medical care is good. Vince uses doctors in Kansas City, all of whom are associated with KU and the care/service he gets there is amazing.

It took visits to four different doctors in 2-1/2 weeks before I got a diagnosis that I feel is correct and got meds that have helped. The diagnosis is gout! It's certainly painful -- pretty sure some of you have experienced it but I feel like it's better than having rheumatoid arthritis. There are supplements that purport to reduce uric acid levels. I will not start taking those until after I'm done with the Rx med I'm taking to stop the current gout flare. 

There are way worse things that can happen but for a few days, I was pretty sad thinking if this was rheumatoid arthritis, my cross stitching days may be over. I'm a bit more optimistic with the gout diagnosis - not happy about it but, again . . it could be way worse.

Today I'm able to type gently using the bad finger. I was able to use a fork/spoon/knife the way I usually do without the index finger poking out hoping not to be touched.

The good news is that this was painful enough for me to commit to reducing sugar/high fructose corn syrup intake and that means goodbye to my beloved Dr. Peppers. Stopping drinking those is something I've known I've needed to do but hoping to not repeat this painful experience again any time soon, the Dr. Peppers will sit and mock me but I will not give in!  :)

Week 23, 2026 Project - G. Leger by Reflets de Soie

 The project for this week is G. Leger by Reflets de Soie. For the start this week, there are 2,265 stitches made and that's 5.52% completed.

I'm going to change things up a bit this week. My goal for each day (except the day I'm with Debbie) is to stitch 300 stitches on G. Leger. After I've stitched 300 stitches, I will switch to the Cross Stitch Camp project. I'm going to do a separate post about the camp project.

Week 22, 2026 Stitching Report - Autumn Moon

 This is likely the least stitches I've made in a week in a long time. I'm blaming it on my finger! Tomorrow I see yet another doctor for that uncooperative finger! Let's hope there's good news and new meds that do the trick.

I made a total of 1,081 stitches in six days! My goal for every day is 400 stitches. I will still get a few stitches made tonight but not enough to make much of a difference in the numbers.

I thought I would completely fill in the moon. Nope - didn't get half of those done.

I did get a few bricks and a couple of leaves to the left of the roof done.

This one will come up again the first week in August. I don't see it getting finished this year!

Elderberries

 You may remember that the elderberries I planted when we first moved here are gone. They didn't die a natural death and it was not a happy day when it happened. The only reason it was not "less happy" than it was already is that I had planted 7 more elderberries outside the fence.

Our ground here is rock. We cannot dig more than an inch in most places without hitting rock. Planting anything is almost impossible. That's why my garden is all planted in raised beds or in mineral tubs.

There's a retaining wall - I think the original owners made it big enough they could use it for growing some things so there was the wall, and then as it sloped down, there was a lot of dirt added. I don't know how it got there but that's how it is. It's this area right here and the trees are no longer there.

There were two large Bradford Pear trees there when we bought the house. One of the trees was way too close to the house. We thought about just trimming the other one back and keeping it but when the tree guy started trimming it, the inside was hollow and it was not going to make it and we certainly don't grieve the loss of a Bradford Pear! That was all near the end of 2021, that's where I planted three elderberries in the spring of 2022. They grew and produced within a couple of years, as elderberries do. When I cut them back in probably February or March of 2023, I stuck some of the cuttings in a bucket of loose soil thinking Chad might want elderberries. I think everyone should have them . . Chad didn't think so. They grew like crazy so in 2024 when I cut the elderberries back, I thought . . what do I have to lose? I went outside the fence, between the fence and the solar panels, which is maybe about 12 -14 feet of space, and I poked 7 cuttings that were maybe 20" long down in the ground. I didn't dig . . I just poked them in the ground. If I hit a rock, I pulled them out and poked them a few inches over and got all of them deep enough that I thought they would stay.

Last year, they were scraggly. I wasn't sure if between the wood fence on their north side and the solar panels on their south side . . maybe they weren't getting enough sun but I left them alone. 

Since my other elderberries were gone, I went out in late winter and pruned them, then I fertilized them. It's been such a wet spring that I haven't needed to water them so I just left them alone.  A month or so ago, Vince said "Have you seen the elderberries?" I had not but when I went out there, I was shocked at how much they had grown. They are way over the top of the fence now and when I walk out my back door, the fragrance of the blooms is amazing!

That's what I see when I walk over to that side of the house and it makes me so happy!

There they are! Full of blossoms. I'm so thankful I planted those there, never knowing I would end up needing to have them there. Since these are outside the fence, I'm hoping the deer will not devour them all but, if they do, we'll just put up some kind of fence for them next year. You can see the solar panels  there and the fence that's already there so it wouldn't take much to put up a fence around them.

There are some black raspberries growing in that area too. The foxes LOVE those and almost every day during raspberry season, there's a fox out there getting a treat. 

The red raspberries are in the back yard. This is their second year to produce and they're doing great. I had to put bird netting over them. I don't mind sharing a bit but they were getting them all.

We have a lot of grapes on the vines too.

I know that having a lot of grapes at this point doesn't mean we'll get a good grape harvest but I'm hopeful.

If I can get enough to make one batch of grape jelly, I'll be happy.

Last Post - Cooper

 I've mentioned that Cooper is seeing a dog trainer. It hasn't gone smoothly. It's our fault. He's such a sweet and loving little guy but we never have people over. We don't take him anywhere. It's kinda sad . . our life . . it's hard to socialize a dog when we aren't very social and I feel like we failed both dogs. Taking Oscar to the vet this last time was an eye opener and that's when we decided to take Cooper for some socialization/training. 

This week, our assignment was to take Cooper to three places. We did. We took him to Walmart (of course!). Cooper and I sat in the car with the windows down while Vince went inside. People passed by the car, talking, laughing. Cooper paid very close attention but he didn't bark or growl and he wasn't afraid. A lady parked next to us and said something to him and he seriously considered growling but I kept telling him he was a good boy and he was fine.

We took him to the park. That wasn't bad because he's used to being walked on a leash down our little road and around our yard and that wasn't much different. There were no other people out where we were and no other dogs. We walked over near the playground and he watched the kids but didn't growl. There are geese out there and they make such a mess but Cooper was very interested in them. I kept the tension on his leash and he never tried to bolt after them. 

Last, we went to Atwoods. They allow dogs inside but we had planned to just walk around the garden area with him. He did so well, Vince suggested we take him inside. He did great! He wasn't afraid at all. They have those big sliding doors that open when you walk up to them and I thought he might panic with those but he didn't pay any attention to them at all. He didn't pay any attention to the other people in the store. I'm so happy with how well he's doing. We have two more sessions with the trainer and once we finish those, we're going to start working with Oscar ourselves. The trainer is an hour away and it's pretty expensive so I think we've learned enough that we can do it ourselves and, if not, we'll get Oscar registered and take him to class too.

It isn't a two month education period - it's something we're going to have to keep up with both of them. Maybe that means Vince and I can improve on our social skills also.  :)