Spring Clean Up Has Begun, Frugal Beef Roast, Bye Bye Homegrown Apples!

Spring Clean Up Has Begun-

With the warmer weather and rain things are really greening up and growing! Time to ditch the flannel sheets, move the heavy winter clothes out of the closet, and more mild clothing in. There's always debris from all the winter storms, dead branches, etc. We had some damage from the heavy snow, but I don't see any big losses. I'm getting over a bronchitis bug, that I was able to manage reasonably well. Only 9 days from onset and about done! I did lots of essential oils, homeopathic cough stuff, etc. Dave started on the yard work yesterday, mowing and getting debris out in the front. I've had to force myself to say inside and do other things, but I did pull a few weeds for the hens! My cough is almost gone, but my stamina isn't quite 100% yet.  Dave trimmed the berries for me today and did some pruning in the backyard. The berries above look much better! My poor chicken sign took a major hit, and the resin disc on the right-

I will bring it in, reassemble, repair and repaint. Glue the disc back together. 

Lots of perennials are coming up, looking good-

Frugal Beef Roast-
On a certain level I've never been a big fan of crock pot cooking for big cuts of meat. Sometimes things look mushy or don't have good color. No baby food looking meat for me, with added canned stuff and high salt. This is my second bottom beef roast for $10.00 on sale! I thawed it for this weekend. I liked the idea of searing the meat in the skillet FIRST. I did that on my last Italian style beef roast and it worked great! I tried this recipe today- Slow Cooker Roast Beef W/Red Wine Sauce  Ditto the browning first-

Then in the crock pot with the liquids. I used a dry Chianti we had. I did add a little Worcestershire sauce for extra flavor.

In the pool

Almost done!

 I added some Yukon Gold potatoes in the last hour. I sauteed about 3 cups of fresh mushrooms with a little butter and flour. I added that to the pot once the meat was done. I did not remove the veggies per the recipe. We ate all that healthy goodness! Reruns will include French dip sandwiches later in the week, yum! For the $10.00 beef I basically just bought beef broth, a baguette and cheese. Lots of food there! The house smells great too. Perfect dinner on a cooler, sprinkly/rainy day like this afternoon.

Bye, Bye Homegrown Apples!

I was down to my last three jars of home canned apples slices from 2015. SAD. What to do? A cobbler with apples and blueberries! I have made this several times and is a great go-to recipe. From TheCupboard.net  Love it!

Double batch!

My pantry rack is basically pretty empty this year. I'm hoping for a good apple harvest this year. Maybe some peaches to can as well? Lots of empty jars to fill...