Stews to warm you up

Brian Boucheron, Wikimedia Commons

Feeling cold and hungry? Warm your tummy with a pot of hearty stew.

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The mountain areas, and some of the lower elevations, are seeing a lot of snow this winter. I am typing this column on my laptop with the help of a generator. We have been without electricity for a week, due to several feet of snow knocking out power in this area.

Dinner tonight is a pot of pinto beans cooked with garlic, onions, dried guajillo peppers and a meaty ham shank. So grateful to have a gas range to cook on. There have been times over the years, though, when we have used our wood stove to cook dinner.

The beans will be nice, but I got to thinking about how great it would be to have a big pot of beef stew with potatoes and carrots. So, here are a few pretty good stew recipes.