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Hey there eat in month-ers!  How has the challenge been going?  And if you’re not participating in the challenge this year, how are your goals and planning for the new year coming along?

I truly believe that large goals may seem unattainable at first, but with small, measurable, and realistic steps, it can be done!  Dream big, but start small.  In other news and dreaming big . . . I actually reserved our wedding spot!!! eeeek!  I can’t believe after 4.5 years, it’s actually for real now.  Talk about planning, but I love to plan!  

So far we’ve been doing pretty good with the eat in month challenge, except one little slip up.  One day this week instead of going home to grab lunch as planned, I had to pick up Chris to get his car fixed and was left without a lunch, oops 🙁  Using some xmas money we grabbed some lunch at a nearby Qdoba.  Technically I’m not sure if that counts because we didn’t use our money, but it is still eating out.

The crock pot is easily my best friend in the kitchen, especially when it’s chilly outside and I don’t want to whip up something when I get home.  This stew is literally melt in your mouth goodness!

Beef Stew

(adapted from Cooking Light)

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 2  teaspoons  olive oil
• 12  garlic cloves, crushed (yes 12, I know that seems like a lot)
• 1.5 lbs lean beef stew meat
• 1 1/2  teaspoons  salt, divided
• 1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 1  cup  red wine (I used a cab)
• 2  cups  chopped carrot
• 1 1/2  cups  chopped onion
• 8 oz crimini mushrooms, chopped
• 1  cup  less-sodium beef broth
• 2  tbsp  tomato paste
• 1  tsp dried rosemary, crushed
• 1  tsp  dried thyme
• 1 tsp herbs de provence
• Dash of ground cloves
• 1  (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1  bay leaf

Instructions

Heat olive oil in a small Dutch oven over low heat.

Lots of garlic.

smoosh.

Add garlic to pan; cook for 5 minutes or until garlic is fragrant, stirring occasionally. Remove garlic with a slotted spoon; set aside. Increase heat to medium-high. Add beef to pan. Sprinkle beef with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Cook 5 minutes, browning on all sides. Remove beef from pan. Add wine to pan, and bring to a boil, scraping pan to loosen browned bits.  Transfer wine to slow cooker and add garlic, beef, remaining 1 teaspoon salt, remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper, carrot, and next 8 ingredients (through bay leaf).

At this point I threw my slow cooker insert into the fridge for the next morning.  Easy peasy.

Everyone into the pot.

Cook in crock pot on low for 8 hours and enjoy with a nice hunk of bread or a grilled cheese sammie.

I really have to figure out the lighting situation in my kitchen because I couldn’t get one somewhat decent picture.  Can I just bottle sunlight?

The flavor of this stew is incredibly deep, dark and luscious.

Great for leftovers the next day and I threw a few containers in the freezer.

Wedding News

Yep, I actually booked the venue for our wedding!!!  Thanks Mom!  It is going to be at Rancho San Rafael Park in Reno, NV.  This is kind of where we wanted to have it all along, but decided to search in Vegas since it would be easier for travel.  Once we couldn’t really find anything here that didn’t cost an arm and a leg or a kidney, we decided to go for the park since it will be a bit cheaper and not a wedding mill.

Just a little background info:  Chris and I met in Reno in college and we went on our first walk together at this park and made walking there together a nice ritual to get away, chat, and enjoy the time together.  Rehearsal dinner will be at a place called Black Rock Pizza where we had our first date and some awesome pizzas 🙂

Rancho has gorgeous gardens and we’ll choose one to have our ceremony in (sorry for the small pics).

Then we’ll probably come inside the museum garden court and have our reception and dancing.  We’re only having 50 guests, so it’s going to be incredibly hard not to invite all our friends and family.  But we still love you all!

I’d like to have an Italian patio style wedding with pale sage green, sunflowers, something simple, elegant, rustic, shabby chic.

Here’s what I’m thinking for the invites (Etsy is the best):

Here’s a table centerpiece idea, but probably smaller and in mason jars.  I’d like to find little personalized olive oil bottles for favors.

I also don’t know what it is about these hanging light bulbs, but I absolutely love them and I’d like to incorporate them somehow.

Well, there you have it, lots of planning to do!  We are going to have a coordinator for day of help and 3 months prior, but we’ll mostly be putting things together ourselves and finding some friends to help (wink, wink) to save some moola.

Hope you had a great week!  Happy Friday!