Wiggymama cooks.

I'm loving me some Pioneer Woman these days. It has been so frigid down here. We are not used to this. At. All. Period. The weather forecasters are preparing us for arctic blasts, and a reporter giving a live shot from a local Kroger showed shoppers "stocking up." Oy. It really has been cold; but we will have ice on the roads for less than 24 hours. Simmuh down, nah, people! Simmuh!

Anyway, so, I am cooking a Pioneer Woman recipe from her cowboy food section. It's a stew. It has a secret ingredient (which isn't secret on the website but will remain secret on this blog because my kids read the blog and will FREAK if they hear of the secret ingredient.) So, here's a link to the stew recipe if you are interested, or just plain nosy! Hey, I'm nosy sometimes too. I got your back!

I do not like the taste of the secret ingredient; BUT I found a separate recipe for a lamb stew in my Cooking Light magazine this month and it called for the secret ingredient as well. This piqued my interest. Could it be that the secret ingredient, when cooked, makes a stew taste better than without the secret ingredient? One wonders. We will find out....in about 2.5 hours.

In the meantime, I can report my kitchen is a mess but the house smells delish! I hope it tastes good!!! Dangit! It is hard to wait!

So, back to our frigid temperatures and the arctic blast. It took all day, but our local school district finally called school off for tomorrow. Duh. I called "snow day" for tomorrow when I got up this morning. Apparently, so had most every other mom, according to Allison's friends.

They're saying 1 to 3 inches tomorrow. And ice on the roads. We shall see.

Gotta run...Need to check on my stew! Stay warm!

**** UPDATE! Jumping on to say I cheated and tasted the broth from my stew. Oh my dear heavens...amazing! My day is made.

**** UPDATE 2.0! Jumping back on to say the stew was absolutely delicious and I highly recommend trying yourself. Very flavorful and the meat was very tender. I did not, however, use stew meat because we don't like all the gristle. This time I used a small (2-lb.) brisket and trimmed all the fat off the bottom, then cubed it. I may try a different cut next time. My mammaw told me it's good to use an eye of round roast for stew, as it is often cheaper than "stew meat" (especially if it's on sale.) Stew meat is a cruddy cut, full of fat, and overpriced because the butcher cut it up for ya.

Also, be forewarned that your kitchen will smell a little like the secret ingredient for about 20-30 minutes after you add it. But the smell will subside as it cooks off.

Try it and see if you like it!