Windy, snowy and cold!

It's such a blustery day here in mid-Michigan today! Although the sun was out earlier this afternoon, it snowed hard from about 4 am till 9 am and brought us a few new inches of fresh clean powder. Now the wind has picked up and the temperatures have dropped....brrrr! Makes me awfully glad for wool socks and wool sweaters to throw on against the chill of an old farm house!

I didn't even venture out to take a picture, but if I did it would have looked something like this ~


Or this ~


Funny thing, though, the sheep sleep outside in this weather even though they have free choice of being inside the barn or out. This morning they were big blobs of snow covered woolies, chewing their cuds and waiting for me to start chores.

Supper tonight is Swiss Steak made with beef that comes from the farmer who puts up our hay. Along with tomato soup canned right here in this kitchen and onions, peppers, carrots and corn put up from our garden or the garden of extended family. The peas are from a can though. I prefer canned peas and don't take time to preserve this particular vegetable ;) Was going to have mashed potatoes with it, but we changed our mind and wanted dumplings instead. They are simmering away on top of the mix right now.

Now if we only had some of that homemade apple crisp leftover for dessert!

Question...how do you make Swiss Steak? Or what do you think of when you hear Swiss Steak? My mom always made it with a tomato base (in this case, I used home canned tomato soup) along with onions, peas and carrots and usually over mashed potatoes. But I know others who have a mushroom-onion type sauce (though to my mind, this is more of a Salisbury Steak. I'd love to hear how you do it, or how you think of it!