Rainy Sunday

No sleep in today as Julie, Emily's mentor, was coming to show Em how to spray some clear paint over her shark painting to set the charcoal details.  Tomorrow we have to attach hooks and string so they can be hung and then we'll take them down to submit them for the show.

It's been raining steadily all day and shows no sign of abating.

This morning we made a Steak Normandy for dinner tonight.  It was the first thing I ever cooked for Phill when we first met, seventeen years ago.  It's an old fashioned recipe out of a very old Womens Weekly cookbook and I used to make it a lot.  We sliced up two onions and lined the bottom of the casserole dish, then mixed cut up chuck steak with flour and sugar in a freezer bag then put it on top of the onion, sprinkled with finely chopped garlic then poured over tomato sauce, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce and let it sit for several hours.  Just before I put it in the oven I topped it with another sliced onion and three rashers of bacon cut in strips.  It will cook for two hours, taking the lid off for the last 20 minutes or so to crisp up the topping.  I decided to make a potato bake to go with it.

I sliced some Kipfler potatoes thinly then with my hands (in my kitchen gloves!) mixed in a packet of dry French onion soup mix, a small carton of sour light cream plus about 1/3 cup of thickened cream.  I put it all in a greased dish and topped it with grated tasty cheese and bacon strips.  Pure Winter comfort food.  We'll have it with asparagus and carrots.  I love stuff that can be made ahead and just put into the oven or dished out of the slow cooker at dinner time.

So we just hung about the house today, too cold and wet out to do anything else.  But it's just so nice to be all together again.