Home made and worth it!

Last night I decided to make a beef stew with dumplings for dinner as I thought this would help to keep out the cold. I dragged the pressure cooker out of the cupboard and although it's over twenty years old it's still as good as new but I must admit I haven't used it as much as I have wanted because it took too long to heat on my old cooker. Now I have a new cooker I think the pressure cooker will get lots of use again. The stew was made in under forty five minutes (which included the time it took to prepare the vegetables) and because all the flavour is retained within the cooker, the taste was fantastic. Because I live alone, there is always enough for two or three meals and the freezer is kept topped up which saves me time, electricity and money and there is only one pan to be washed up!
With this new cooker, I have a fan assisted oven which is brilliant for ensuring that everything is cooked evenly. In the old oven I had to keep my eye on any baking and regularly turn cakes and pies etc. so that they didn't get baked one sided. As I am fed up with the mush that is sold under the guise of bread I decided to bake a loaf this morning because I have a longing for really crusty bread and crunchy toast. Perhaps it's a comfort thing in the cold weather, I really don't know or care, so anyway, I baked a loaf and the smell is driving me crazy while I write this but I must exercise every bit of self control so as not to eat it all!
The other thing I did was to 'prove' the pizza stone that my daughter and grand-children gave me for Christmas. I can't wait to make pizza with my grand-daughter the next time she comes although she has given me a very long list of all the things she wants me to cook again but I'm sure that pizza is on there somewhere. This gadget will be very useful in the summer too when I make quiches because it will ensure that the bottom of the pastry is crips too. In fact, I can think of loads of things I can use it for when I'm cooking so it will get plenty of use.
Hopefully, we will have a farmers' market this week as the weather forecast shows that there will be less snow so 'fingers crossed'. I much prefer to buy all my vegetables there because they are certainly much fresher and cheaper than the supermarket and all grown within a thirty mile radius of the city centre. The meat and poultry is local too and although a little more expensive, the taste is far superior. So, lots of home cooking!