Social Affairs and Beef Stew.

November 24, 2012 by betterwithsprinklesblog 20 Comments

Good morning! How’s everyone? For those of you that had a few extra days off this week, I hope the time off has been delightful and rejuvenating!

My day yesterday was fairly typical. I was home from school, so I literally spent the day working on schoolwork.

A typical breakfast:

A chocolate protein pancake with Justin’s Vanilla Almond Butter on top. For the record, I’m about halfway through the jar already – addictive stuff.

Followed by a morning getting some marking/papers done. Next week I have 2 presentations, 1 draft of a final paper and 2 essays due – intense! I have a busy weekend planned, so yesterday was definitely devoted to schoolwork.

Of course, I took a lunch break.

brown rice with bell pepper, peas, and Veggie Patch Meatless Buffalo Wings with plum sauce for dipping. I was actually surprised my how much I liked these – they tasted pretty meaty and had a spicy kick to them.

After lunch, I got some pretty cool news – I’m going to be on the Brantford GSA! (The Graduate Student’s Association – basically, the graduate student council). I’ve gotten the position of Director of Social Affairs; I’ll be in charge of planning social and fundraising events, as well as keep in contact with speakers for future panels/conferences. I’m definitely thrilled that I was given this role! I’ve actually never participated in any form of student government before, so I’m excited to give this a shot.

I left the house twice today; once to go to the gym, and again to go pick up dinner. I didn’t feel like cooking and I had a coupon book on my coffee table full of coupons about to expire, so I decided to make use of one of them.

Pita Pit!

I live pitas, but it’s been forever since I’ve had one. The cafeteria at UWO had a pita place…Pita Hut? Pita Pizazz? (something along those lines. Chelsea, help me out here) and I used to go there for lunch at least once a week. I love having a full meal that I can fit in one hand!

The deal was for two pitas and two drinks, so the Coke Zero in there had my name all over it.

(awkward story: I was rocking out in the car on my drive home when I was stopped at a light. I looked over and the guy in the car next to me was giggling and pointing at me…oops. C’mon, everyone has their own private car dance parties, right?)

I went with a Chicken Crave Pita, which was ham, chicken and swiss.

I stuffed it with all my favourite veggies: spinach, tomato, cucumber, green pepper, pickles, black olives, and hot peppers, with honey mustard and tzatziki.

Delicious (and yes, we eat dinner on the couch while watching TV shows/movies on our XBox. No cable here…or dining room table).

I made it about 3/4 of the way through the pita before admitting defeat. Now that I know the Pita Pit here has good food, expect it to pop up once in a while.

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

Ever since I received it for my birthday, I’ve been making great use out of my slow cooker. Earlier in the week, I had been thinking about a good slow cooker recipe to make and I realized that beef stew is pretty much the quintessential slow cooker recipe. I had never made it before, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

(side note: I was talking to my mom on the phone on Thursday and told her I had made beef stew. Apparently, my brother had mentioned to her that he hadn’t had it in a long time and requested she make it sometime soon. Considering that beef stew is almost never made in that house, I find that interesting in a sibling-telepathy sort of way).

I woke early Monday morning before class and by dinner, I had a tender, flavourful beef stew waiting.

 

Slow Cooker Beef Stew Recipe

Ingredients

• two lbs chopped stewing beef
• 1 cup baby carrots
• 2 stalks celery
• 2 large potatoes, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 2 cups beef brother (preferably low sodium)
• 1 tablespoon worchestire sauce
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika

 

Directions

1. Place beef in slow cooker. cover with flour, salt and pepper and stir until meat is coated.

 2. Add carrots, potatoes, carrots and celery to slow cooker. Add Worchestire, basil and paprika.

3. Add beef broth and toss. Cook on high for 6 hours, or low for 12.

My original plan was to cook in for 12 hours on low, but I got a text from Eric mid afternoon (he works a split shift so he’s home in the afternoons) telling me I forgot to plug the slow cooker in. Well, that was smart of me. Fortunately, I told him to turn it on high and we were good to go by dinnertime.

Seriously, I love coming home and having dinner made for me. It just makes life so much easier, you know? Plus it just smells so, so good. 

And this was an awesome dinner to come home to – the veggies and the meat were perfectly tender and the broth was nice and flavourful. Served with a whole wheat roll for soaking up the broth, this was an awesome dinner.

Have an awesome weekend! Eric and I are off to his company holiday party tonight, so I’m looking forward to kicking off the holiday season.

<— Most embarrassing moment in a vehicle? I wish I could say that was the first time I’ve been caught holding my own karaoke party in the car, but it’s not.

<— Did you ever do any student council/office council positions? Any advice for a newbie?

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