Goldfish are Gold!

It's nap time at our house, can you tell??  It's about the only free 15 minutes of my day to do something I enjoy.  And, from the lack of my posting recently, you can't even tell that I enjoy blogging.  We are in a strange phase, I think Martin is close to dropping the morning nap, and opting for one long afternoon nap.  But, in this phase we just fight the morning nap and finally give in about 12:30 and crash for about 45 minutes, making us cranky until we get our nap out during our second nap of the day.  How do people at daycare's get all of those babies to take a nap??  Maybe I should go ask for some pointers!

But since he has been asleep, I decided to start supper and throw it in the crock-pot.  Anyone else love the crock-pot as much as I do??  Today it is cubed steak--laugh all you want, one of my favorite meals, and it doesn't break the bank.  It's easy, all you really have to know how to do is make a roux, and let's face it, if you can't make a roux you should probably not be in the kitchen.  You just have to be very attentive but other than that, no real skill is involved.  I usually make cubed steak in the skillet along with my gravy, and serve immediately, but for some reason that cut of meat tends to be tough, so I thought cooking it low and slow in the crock pot will help.

Want the recipe??  It's groundbreaking!  I simply take the meat and flour both sides and stick in a hot skillet with EVOO.  Before flipping, I pepper each side with cracked black pepper.  You are just browning each side, not cooking thru.  When the meat is browned, place all meat in crockpot.  Here comes the fun part.  Turn your skillet way down medium-low, and add more EVOO-  (or whatever you want: canola oil, butter (not margarine), or whatever your little heart desires) then add about as much flour as you did oil (I used 1/4 cup of both).  This is the roux part.  The key is stirring like crazy, and NOT letting it burn.  You DO want to pick up all of that cooked on beef up--drippings make it extra yummy.  Keep stirring until it starts to dissolve all the flour.  No lumpy gravy here.  Then you want to let it cook a little longer to brown the gravy a bit.  Then add your water, while whisking (1 cup).  Repeat after me....NEVER STOP STIRRING!  Depending on the taste you prefer you could use a gravy packet, but I don't find that is necessary.  I usually toss in a beef bouillon cube to enhance the beef flavor.  Add pepper and salt as desired, BUT don't overdo it on the salt.  Then I poured the gravy over the meat in the crock-pot and turned it on low--will cook about 6 hours.  I will let you know if the meat is more tender!  Yum-o

Martin thinks our goal this week is to read every book he got for Christmas at least 3 times a day.  This is no easy feat, since I am pretty sure he got at least 30.  Kid is obsessed with books.  Our favorites are the Opposites book from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Happy Hippo Angry Duck by Sandra Boynton!  We are still loving destroying any towers built out of legos, and riding around in our truck.  He also gets in his truck to watch TV.  And, carrying around all the animals from the Zoo Talker is also high on our To-Do List each day.  Keeps us busy, and makes the day go by quickly.

That picture is from last week when my parents were here.  My dad won't tell Martin no, so Martin naturally LOVES his Papa John.  There aren't a whole lot of folks that he will actually jump out of my arms for like that.  But, I mean, does your Mama let you stick your whole arm in the goldfish bucket?  Don't think so!!  Hope everyone has a great rest of the week!