It’s cold here in Tennessee. I can really tell that summer is completely gone, fall is here and winter is right around the corner. The leaves are falling every day – I will have to do some raking this weekend to keep the yard clean and the mold minimized. I don’t mind the leaves, but the mold bother all of us with stuffed up noses, sore throats and headaches. And this time of year, with these symptoms I never know if it is just allergies or something more serious, like maybe strap throat. The school sent home a notice that a lot of kids are sick right now – it seems that every time the weather changes so drastically we all get sick with something that’s going around the schools. Yuck!

I decided to cook a big pot of beef stew and make some homemade bread for dinner tonight. I used to like the taste of Campbell’s Chunky soups, but the last two cans I bought were disappointing. It’s not that much work to make stew from scratch. I buy a chuck roast when it goes on sale, cut it up into small chunks and plop them into a ZipLoc bag. I keep one or two ZipLoc bags in the freezer, pretty much year round, as this makes a great stew but also a great beef chili.

My special recipe calls for a dash of seasoned salt, a dash of rosemary, a few shakes of Worsterchire sauce and my secret ingredient – a dollop of French’s yellow mustard. You can add whatever vegetables you want. I usually have some leftover corn, green beans and even spinach, along with a can or two of stewed tomatoes. I wish I had fresh tomatoes, but as you know, my garden did not give me any decent tomatoes this year. So I have a half dozen cans of diced and stewed tomatoes on the pantry shelf. So my stew is simmering on the stove, my bread is in the oven, and dinner is just an hour away!