In the land of the Homemaking Diva it is totally normal to start working out and get the energy to begin cooking four course meals and delicious pounds adding desserts every night for dinner. In my head I am a shapely star travelling work from home Homemaking Diva who dresses like I am 50's preschool teacher and cooks like she is a chef in an award winning restaurant. In real life I am a slightly overweight preschool teacher who works from home and is often too tired to cook....until now.
I am working out everyday at the gym and I have dropped four pounds in the last two weeks. So I am realizing that with great energy comes great power and I am wanting to bake and cook and start looking in my cook books again to find awesome things to cook and present. I also want to throw a dinner party. So you can look out for the post of the dinner party I will be throwing and how that went. The most important part to remember about throwing a dinner party is that you do not have to be rich in order to throw such a thing and to have fun with your friends.
Now I have discovered something called Flipbook on my new s3 phone (only my second smart phone ever). With flipbook I have been connected to some recipes that I would have never have thought to try if I had just looked through my cookbooks on my shelf or done a simple internet search. I am not sure what that says about search skills but it's the truth.
So this week I decided to make a German Winter Stew which apparently came from the Oprah site. You are not allowed to judge my use of an Oprah recipe. http://www.oprah.com/food/German-Winter-Stew This stew can me made in a crock pot but I decided to make it in my dutch oven. I took a HUGE pork shoulder and seasoned it with salt pepper, cumin, onion powder and garlic. This a bit different from what the site has posted for this recipe but I choose to do it with what I had already in the house verses trying to grab expensive ingredients. I also decided not to use cabbage in it because the family is very much against this idea and I did not want an entire revolt during dinner time. Their apathy to cabbage did not stop me from wanting to make this dish. So I decided to use spinach.
I have to tell you the best place in which to obtain spinach is from the farmers markets in your area. I picked up a HUGE bag for less than two dollars, along with the apples to go into the stew.
I cut the pork shoulder into bite size pieces and seared them in olive oil when that is done I added the onion, chicken broth and the cut up apples. This all cooks in the dutch oven for 3 hours. After which I add in the spinach and instead of cooking for another 45 I did it for another 10-15. The results were astounding. The family loved it and beside the fact that I forgot to make corn bread there were no complaints.
The apples did not overwhelm the dish. Everything went together with none of the many parts of the dish overshadowing the other. I was not sure how the spinach would go over in the dish since it was made for cabbage and while Brussel Sprouts are a closer match to replace cabbage I had to find something that was not offensive to the family. Pairing this dish with corn bread lightly sweetened with brown sugar makes this a perfect dish for a chilly day. If you would like to make it the traditional way I have posted the link inside the blog you to see the recipe. Post links when you have made it to show me how yours differed from mines!
With that I am out!
Live Long and Be Creative
Homemaking Diva
