My Really, For True, Award-Winning Cowboy Stew Recipe

Hi.

It's super snowy out and I'm having stew for breakfast. Really good stew because it is easy to make, delicious, low cal and very nutritious.

Now, before I give you this recipe, you must:
Promise to try it
Promise to pass it on
Promise not to give me any song and dance about how you don't like beans....

Ok here's how:

• 4 medium potatoes - russets/goldens, whatever. Just maybe not bakers. Thou shalt not peel...
  
• 4 large carrots, scrubbed and cut into 1/2 inch sections. Thou shalt NOT peel...
  
• 1 Large onion. LARGE I said. Softball size at least. Red or Vidalias are perfect. Ok peel...
  
• 4 stalks celery (washed, ok?)
• 2 - 3 cloves garlic, smashed (more if you like garlic or are married to a vampire and you want the night off....)
• 8 Honey Garlic or Mild Italian sausages. I use the Costco brand because they are delicious and come in flats of 10 or 11, which means you can have two just to munch on.Cook first, yeah? They're kinda chewy when raw....
  
• 2 Cans of chopped, stewed/spiced tomatoes - no-name brand is perfect
• 2 cans of Maple Beans - no pork, ok? The pork in those cans is disgusting.
• 2 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
• 1 TBSP sugar (balances the acid in the tomats)

Salt and pepper aren't super necessary due to the tomatos and the sausages being already seasoned.

Heat a LARGE pot - 4 litre size - to medium high; add 3 tbsp olive and/or canola oil

Chop the potatoes, celery and onions into bite-sized pieces (1/2"x1/2" or so); add to pot. Stir so the veggies brown but don't let them burn, ok?

Cut the sausages into 1" sections. Don't worry if the meat pops out. Add to veg and cook until the sausage is about 1/2 cooked... takes about 5 minutes.

Add in the canned tomatoes, beans, Worcestershire, sugar and any other seasonings you like... smoked paprika is really nice...

Bring pot to the boil and then turn the heat down to very low. On low, the mixture should be steaming but not doing much more than looking like it might think about bubbling.

Let the pot simmer for 1/2 and hour or so to let the flavours blend. While that's going on, cook up some rice - brown is best, especially if you cook it with some barley and spelt and wild rice (all those types take about 45 minutes to cook and that's no problem: your stew can simmer away for an hour and will be super scrumptious).

This makes enough stew for six hungry people. It freezes perfectly too. It will be fine refrigerated for three to four days, so you can have some for breakfast all week!

Given the weather in our city, you can leave your stew pot outside, where it will certainly stay cold and will probably freeze... ok.. no, don't do that. You wanna eat this stuff now, not in April...

No cowboys were injured or cooked in the making of this stew.....

The Debate - and the panet - heats up

With the release of thousands of revealing and damaging-to-the-cause emails out of Britain last week, the climate change debate is heating up big time.

Thanks to revelations that a whole bunch of 'scientists' who had lot (of money) to gain had greatly manipulated data - created 'data' in some cases - Gore and Family's machine is finally falling to pieces.

I spoke last week to Christopher Monckton (by email) about the ousting of the so-called scientists involved in this 10 year long scandal. "Good, clean fun," he called it, quite tongue in cheek, I'm sure, adding "I've reported them to the UK Information Commissioner."

In 2000, about four months before G.W. Bush took office for his first 'term' or whatever they called that monstrosity of an administration, author and long-time journalist, Jim Marrs' book, Rule by Secrecy, hit the book stores.

In that book, which came out several months before the US election that year, Marrs makes several predictions based on his extensive - and we're talking 40 years here - research.
1. That, amazingly, G.W. Bush would win the Election, despite Gore's viability
2. That Gore would go on to establish a world-wide 'event'.

That event is this ridiculous manipulation of certain realities - one being that the planet's temperature does fluctuate, all by itself with very little help either way from humans.

Al Gore's very lifestyle belies his postulations. IF he's so bloody sure sea levels are going to rise by 20 feet by 2012, why on earth did he last year buy a condo not six blocks from the ocean? Hm?

That website among MANY others takes a long, hard, SCIENTIFIC look at the realities of planetary climate fluctuations and establishes in reasonably simple language that the World According to Gore is an accounting closer to that of Alice in Wonderland.

By the way, humans account for only Zero POINT 6% (.60%) of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, which is statistically insignificant.

Animals - those raised for food production are a FAR greater contributor to Co2 gasses, but still not in any significant or damaging way. Water vapours, due to the fact that water covers over 80% of this planet, are a far more significant factor in planetary warming and cooling.

This planet is currently exiting a short (in terms of the planet's overall age) cold spell, just as it did back in about 1700 or so.

Global warming has been a very, very effective way of diverting human attention away from other, much more serious issues - like how the global financial markets have been so manipulated and how incidents and wars are planned and executed and why.

Humans suck for their willingness to buy into any scary thing even when it is so obviously made up. Hence the popularity of The Blair Witch Project....

More Calgary Photowalk

As usual, these are absolutely copyright so don't steal 'em or copy 'em or anything, OK? If you want to buy copies, just simply let me know and I will get in touch and let you know how that can happen.

Otherwise, be a nice, honourable person or I'll have to go on a big 'ol rant and y'know how that goes, right? Not pretty....

These were all shot in Calgary in the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary area. Excellent fun except for the part where we were required, by a very grumpy, rule-huggin' guy, to leave the group's mascot - a gorgeous, quiet white dog - in the car. We asked... the dog says he doesn't eat birds and just wanted to go for a walk.... Oh well. No harm done.

Calgary Photowalk