Mr. ReddHedd has been out of town for work, and I've had solo parental duty, homework patrol, and bedtime reading as part of my job description, on top of setting up a fun little tea/dinner party for us girlies and battling a serious organizing itch to boot.
Which has meant I've been eating way too much on the fly and not nearly enough solid, healthy food the last coupla days.
Am taking a break in the cleaning to throw an easy -- yet seriously yummy -- beef roast into the crock pot to cook all day while I'm finishing the work in our room.
Fear not, overstuffed clothing drawers, your time has come, though.
And, in the meantime, dinner can cook without me having to constantly supervise it, and we still get a tasty, home-cooked meal. My favorite kind!
Start with a beef roast -- I like eye of round or bottom round because it is a less fatty cut, so long as you trim off the thick layer of fat on the one side of it before you cook it.
Or you can have your butcher/meat counter guy trim that for you if you are squeamish. They are really nice about doing that, and are happy to do so ahead of time if you call in a coupla hours before you head out to the market so it will be ready for you when you shop, too!
We generally get a big one because we love a good beef roast, and will eat two days of it before everyone (but me!) tires of it. Then I convert whatever remaining beef we have into au jus sandwiches, taco or burrito filling, or Italian-tomato topping for polenta slices (which you can find easily at the store in pre-cooked tubes ready for you to slice and bake). Or I freeze it to use for a later meal.
To get the whole thing cooking, though? It just takes a few easy steps in the morning and then your roast and veggies cook away for you all day. Here's what I've done:
I cut up two large-ish onions into a medium dice. This isn't something you need to do as mirepoix tiny dice (There will be no quiz at the end!), just your basic chop chop on the cutting board is fine. I do the same with a couple of ribs of celery, slicing thinly because Mr. ReddHedd is not such a fan of chunky celery. (I'm just happy to get veggies into him most days, frankly.)
Toss the onion and celery into the bottom of your crockpot, saving back about half of one onion to sprinkle over the top of the roast later on. I add in about a teaspoon of minced garlic as well -- these days usually from a jar because I've had trouble finding decent fresh garlic here lately for some reason. (And who wants old, dried, moldy garlic in their food, I say?!? Jarred garlic isn't quite the same, but it is far better than that.)
Then I add about a cup of matchstick carrots to this and mix it around to blend all the veggies together.
I buy the carrots pre-chopped a lot of the time for convenience sake because I use them in a lot of recipes at our house and having to grate my carrots takes away from our homework time. It is far cheaper, though, to grate your own and that's what I do when I have time or need to cut back budget-wise. Either way is fine.
I just like them in shreds so they melt into the pan juices in the bottom and flavor everything nicely.
To the veggies, I add two large-ish bay leaves on each side, a few generous grinds of Penzeys Tellicherry black peppercorns and 1 Tbsp. Penzeys beef roast seasoning. (Yes, I am well aware that I use a lot of Penzeys spices, but I like my spices to be fresh -- the flavor is just so much better that way. If I order them, I know I have fresh spices. At my local grocery store? No guarantee. But again, YMMV.)
Stir again to blend all the flavors, keeping the two bay leaves on the sides of the cooker so they aren't under the meat.
I like to keep the bay leaves at the sides of the cooker so they are easier to fish out of the roast when it is done cooking -- you don't want to leave them in with the leftovers for certain, because they get bitter. Take the bay leaves out immediately once the cooking is finished and pitch them in the garbage -- they flavor the roast so nicely they are worth it, but you don't want them hanging around when you are done cooking.
Then take your roast, and trim away any excess fat. I do this for health reasons at our house -- we don't need the extra saturated fat in our diet, and in the crockpot the meat stays really tender as it braises. But this is a YMMV thing, because I know folks who swear by leaving the fat on the roast. For us? It stays tender and I make a gravy on the side to combat dryness, so I'd rather have less fat and keep my arteries healthy longer. But that's just me.
Anyway, trim off the fat and salt and pepper it all over. You can, at this point, brown your roast in a Dutch oven on all sides with a little olive oil to sear in some flavor and juices.
But I don't bother with this extra step unless it's a huge company roast and I'm searing it for color and presentation purposes, or if I'm running late on starting the roast and I want to heat the meat more quickly to jump start the cooking process.
Normally, I just trim my roast, and then pop it in the pot on top of all the veggies. Over the roast, I pour a can of reduced-sodium, low fat beef broth.
Then, I cut three red potatoes into large chunks -- give them a good scrub, then cut in half, halve again, then chunk them into large pieces. Place the potatoes around the edge of the roast, on the perimeter of the crockpot. You can use fewer or more potatoes, but I cut up enough to get my crockpot about 3/4 of the way full and no more. Any more than that risks bubbling out the lid, and I hate that because it cuts into my cooking temperature.
Over this, I sprinkle the remaining diced onions, another Tablespoon of Penzeys beef roast seasoning, and a few more generous grinds of black pepper.
Oh crap, I just remembered I also usually put in some Worchestershire sauce at this point. Be right back...
Add in a few good shakes of Worchestershire sauce over this -- maybe a Tablespoon or two. Or add some good dark beer or a dry, full-bodied red wine. Use good beer or wine, the stuff you would like to drink, not the crappy "cooking wine" stuff they sell at the store. The flavor is worth it. It's a pretty forgiving recipe, but I like to add something for a little ooomph in the flavor and a little tenderizing action on the meat -- and the Worcestershire, beer or wine do that well.
All of these work nicely separately, however, but trust me when I say not to use all of them at once. It's icky. Don't go there.
And that's it. You turn it on for a 6 hour cooking time on HIGH or 8 hours or so on LOW. Sometimes more, sometime less depending on the size of your roast. The longer and slower you cook it, the more tender and flavorful the meat, I've found.
Before I serve mine, I like to add in about a cup to 2 cups of baby carrots on the top about 30 to 45 minutes before we eat. The amount pretty much depends on how much room I have in the slow cooker based on how things have cooked down. This way, the carrots steam nicely and are just a little past crisp-tender instead of turning into gooey mush which we all pretty much hate in a vegetable.
I also make some gravy for this -- sometimes homemade, sometimes by opening a jar of gravy and then using some of the pan drippings from the cooker and spices to make it more tasty. Depends on how much time I have and how much of a rush everyone else is in to eat on how I do it. But the pan juices from this make lovely gravy if you have the time.
Serve it up with some crusty whole grain bread, a nice side salad, some steamed green beans...or just eat it in a bowl right out of the cooker and enjoy it on a cold day.
If you are making it on a work day, chop up the veggies and trim the roast the night before. I chop my veggies up and store them in a covered container in the fridge -- with the half an onion in a separate small container. That way, all I have to do is dump them into the crockpot in the morning, add seasonings, put the roast in, and dump the little container of onions on top. The only exception is the potatoes, you want to cut them up fresh otherwise they turn funky colors as they oxidize that are just not appetizing. I wash my potatoes the night before and have a cutting board ready so all I have to do is chop, dump and head out the door. Makes for an easy meal for a working day, with plenty of leftovers for lunches, too.
This is one of our favorite meals because it is so easy. And it is perfect comfort food for a dreary, cool day.
My house already smells like heaven. Can't wait until dinner...
(Photo of veggies at the bottom of the crockpot via land_camera_land_camera. Mine looked a lot like this, except the carrots were in shreds and I didn't use shallots -- I used onions for a more robust flavor. Shallots work though if you want it more subtle.)
No comments:
Post a Comment