Man we're getting behind on this posting thing. Well here's the only memorable thing I cooked this week. I was in charge of the beefy noodles. We were going to have steak, from this top round steak we had, but our better homes and gardens cookbook said grilling might not be the best choice for this cut, plus it was raining outside. So I just kept looking in that cookbook and found a recipe for beef and noodles. It went roughly like this:

I cut the beef (about 18 oz steak) into 3/4inch cubes, and browned them in some oil in the bottom of a large pot. I removed the beef, and cooked a diced onion and some of those pretty peppers for a little bit. Then I added back the beef and 4 cups of homemade chicken broth (didn't have beef broth) and a little bit of vinegar, salt, and pepper. Then you let this just simmer covered for about an hour and a half. Next, you bring the mixture back to a boil and add noodles, about 8 oz. We had macaroni, so we went with it. Let these cook until they're happy. Drain the meat and noodles. Add about 2 TBS flour to the liquid, add it back to the pan, and cook it down to a nice bubbly gravy. Add back the meat and noodles, voila. I was pretty happy with it, but it tasted like something that was very simple, despite all the time it took to create. The chard was sauteed with olive oil and fresh garlic, the beans were just boiled briefly. Here's how busy our stove was:

In the back right corner there, I'm performing a real experiment. I took our 2 week old beets, that looked like they weren't worth a thing, sliced them up, and boiled them to extract their sugar. Then I boiled that down until it was a thick syrup, and left it to cool overnight. In the morning I was supposed to have beet sugar. I did not. I had and continue to have beet syrup. It tastes interesting though, quite sweet, with some molasses-y, sort of beet-y dark flavor. I'm not sure if we'll use it for anything, but the beets were going in the trash anyway.

We shared our meal with our company, Charlotte. She and Alli watched The Women on my laptop as it seems my DVD player has passed away. I think Charlotte liked the food. She did the dishes for us, so it must have been at least somewhat good. Thanks for doing the dishes Charlotte. I hate the dishes.

Oh, and one more thing. Alli said in the week 13 post that we got 1 melon. What an understatement. We got a melon which looked like it could have been a cantaloupe, but for some reason I thought it was honeydew, and I was right, I think. It was the sweetest best honeydew I've ever had in my life. sooo good. I hope I get another one of those today.