Yummy Beef Stew Recipe

For many years I have used the same beef stew recipe. It is a favorite on cold winter days in Chelan. Secretly, I don't tell many people that it is an old weight watcher recipe, because it tastes so yummy you would never guess. I took this stew to a scrapbook event this weekend at my friend Carrie's house and everyone loved it. Toward the end of the day, I was asked if I ever blog recipes and I thought, well, why not so here it is - my favorite beef stew recipe (my family including kids LOVE it).

Yummy Beef Stew

1 lb stew meat (cut into small chunks)
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes with the juice
1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
4 Tbsp brown sugar
1 can (15 oz) corn with juice
1 can (15 oz) green beans with juice
small handful shredded cabbage
2 Tbsp dried chopped onions
3 Tbsp Minute Tapioca pearls
1 Tbsp beef boullion base
3 medium potatoes, cut up with skin on
about 1/2 cup sliced carrots

Place all ingredients in large crock pot and stir. Turn on to low for 8-10 hours. Stir a couple of times toward the last couple of hours.

Hope you enjoy this - we eat with rolls or cornbread and top it with Parmesan cheese

Rubber Duckies & Games

Good Friday morning! The Rogges hope your holidays are going well!


Ours are staying quite busy as I am making gingerbread cookies with 24 kindergarten kids today . . . should keep me out of trouble for the day! I love working in the class and think that this will be a fun day for them! I have it on good word that Santa may have delivered some more elves to the Chelan area last night so it will be interesting to see if any of our friends got elves for their families.

Our elves have continued to resort to their own devices when left unsupervised (but I am NOT going to stay up and at home all of the time watching them as the kids have asked me to do). When the kids got home from school yesterday the elves were missing from their bed so the kids went looking for them and this is what they found . . .


After dinner we enjoyed a snack of Christmas Popcorn while watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The Christmas Popcorn was a big hit and Kenzie loved helping me make it!

The kids tucked the elves in tight in their bed but alas the elves found something to do and were found this morning sitting on furniture playing the kids' Nintendo DS games! They have clearly been in contact with Candy & Holly at my sister's house as they played with games on Wednesday night! The kids thought that was funny!

The other big news from yesterday is that the University of Oregon (my alma mater sort of as OHSU is an affiliate of UO) won the Civil War Game last night beating the Oregon State Beavers in a nail-biter 37-33! Not only does that make the Ducks the PAC-10 Champions but it secures them a trip to Pasadena to play in the Rose Bowl against Ohio State! I smell Roses!!

Elves on the Loose!

Well another day . . . another Elf Capade!

Yesterday when Dave got home from school with the kids, this is what they found!

On further investigation, look at the drivers!

The kids got very upset about this one and were sure that I would be very mad about it! Mackenzie again went to her paper and wrote and drew another letter to Santa reporting the mischief.

Evidently Santa is not in much control of the elves when they are away from the North Pole as this is what we found this morning . . .

But on a positive note, I hear that elves have arrived at my sister's house in Bothell and one of the elves, Holly, has been reported by my 2 year old niece to be pooping her pants! I guess I should be happy I don't have a pooping elf at my house!

Hungry Elves resort to own devices

Well the kids learned a valuable lesson this morning as they did not leave out a healthy snack for their elves. We got up this morning and the elves had gotten snacks of their own . . . and made a mess in the process. Morale of the story is that hungry elves will resort to any mean necessary!

The bad behavior upset Mackenzie enough that she wrote a letter (on very BIG paper) to Santa reporting the elf mischief and drawing a picture of the mischief.

Elf Capades continue at the Rogges!

Visiting Elves

For those who do not know, the kids have requested from Santa to have a visitng elf this year from Dec 1 to Dec 24. They were very excited after I read them this book! Mackenzie even took the time to hide the soap in drawers as the book warns that elves may get into mischief including stealing bars of soap.

Then last night while they lay sleeping in their beds - we got visitors - yes not just one but two elves came to our house. The kids were very excited to see them. They each came with passports and letters from Santa. Bernard Buttons & Belle Blizzard are happy little visitors at our house.

Mackenzie hid her baby elephant this morning before leaving for school for fear that the elves might do something to it (if they value their lives they will leave it alone). Mackenzie even shared her wooden cradle that Papa made her for Xmas two years ago in order to provide a good bed for the elves to rest in while the kids were gone. I was given clear instruction that I was to watch them today so I could be sure they didn't cause any trouble. Well, I did have an errand or two to run after dropping the kids off at school and look at what those elves did - they got paper and big pencils and are sitting ON the dining room table drawing!

The Elf Capades have begun at the Rogge house - stay tuned for more!

Catch Up!

OK I have been made aware of my delinquency in posting to my blog. I have been busy getting ready for the holidays and enjoying a weekend away scrapbooking with the person who tells me I am behind . . . so this one is for you Megan - Luv Ya!

A New Leaf

So today is the first post of November, the first school day of November, the first school day off of Daylight Savings Time, AND, last but NOT least, the FIRST day of a new class I am taking found at www.shimelle.com and titled Blogging for Scrapbookers. I have taken a class from Shimelle at Creating Keepsakes a few years ago and I loved it. I have taken a few of her online classes and am continually amazed at how she makes me look at things differently. She is from England and there is a part of her verbage in her posts that I love as it is not the American way to do it.

She works doing things in the industry of scrapbooking and finds it difficult for people to understand all of what she does ass some people (particularly those of the male species) just don't "get it" as I am sure we all have experienced. She recently compared scrapbooking to blogging just using paper and pretty things. From that she developed this class and I am excited to embark on this journey with her.

My blogging is sporatic at best and is complicated by Facebook as it sometimes seems duplicative in nature. My hope through this class is to use my blog more often and to post more meaningful (AKA meaty) posts on my blog as I use it to save memories and things that make my life just that MY LIFE.

I hope you will visit and read my blog as I embark on this journey. I am not setting unreasonable expectations so I am making NO promises to my readers except that I am going to start this journey and see where it takes me.

Here is to a new leaf in my life and fun blog posts to come.