Balsamic and Onion Pot Roast

Hi everyone! Just a heads up, I'll be going out of town soon so there will not be any new recipes until I get back August 1st. I will try to blog about the food I'm experiencing in Park City while I'm gone, but if not, fear not! I will be back next week with new recipes and foods! Tonight I'm playing catch up by posting a meal I made a few days ago. This is another recipe that took a bit of prep, but I'd say it was more like 25 minutes of prep rather than 45.  You could probably brown the meat the night before and put it in the fridge over night.

As always, here is the original link: http://www.acooksquest.blogspot.com/2011/12/balsamic-and-onion-pot-roast.html

Balsamic and Onion Pot Roast

 Ingredients:

3-4 pound boneless chuck roast
Seasoning Salt

Garlic Powder
black pepper to taste
1-2 T olive oil (depends on your pan)
1/4 cup water to deglaze pan
2-3 large onions, peeled and thickly sliced
1 cup beef stock, reduced to 1/2 cup (can use a can of beef broth, but be sure to reduce it)
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup tomato sauce


Chop the onions thickly and place in the bottom of the crockpot

Rub meat well with seasoning salt, onion powder, garlic powder and black pepper. I find it easiest to sprinkle all of my seasoning on the plate first and then set the meat on top so the bottom gets plenty of seasoning too!

All the seasonings on the plate just before I plop down the meat

Mmmmm Hunk of beef!

 Heat heavy pan with small amount of olive oil and brown roast well on both sides.  I did 7 minutes per side and it worked out well.

Nicely browned after 7 minutes in the oil!

While roast browns put 1 cup beef stock in saucepan, bring to a boil and cook until reduced to 1/2 cup, then let cool slightly and mix in balsamic vinegar and tomato sauce.

MMMM Balsamic and tomato

I use Hunt's tomato products because if you look at the label they are one of the few tomato companies that do not add sugar or corn syrup to their canned tomato products

When the meat is brown on all sides, remove the meat and plop it in the crock pot and then deglaze pan with 1/4 cup water. Add the pan drippings to sauce mixture.

Pour beef stock mixture over the meat and the onions in the crockpot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, until beef is tender. The meat might be partly submerged in liquid after this much time.

Remove meat from slow cooker and keep warm. 

 Drain liquid from Crockpot and remove as much of the fat as you can with fat separator or skimmer. Cook down liquid by about 1/3, and serve sauce with meat and onions.

LOVE my gravy separator! If you've been checking my blog regularly, you've already seen this photo :-)

Finally ready to eat with some roasted Red potatoes from Wegmans

 So I'd give this recipe a 7.5 out of 10 on flavor and I'd say it didn't require a whole lot of skill, you just have to pay attention to boiling liquids (twice) in this recipe so you reduce them properly.  It was an interesting savory, tart Pot Roast that was just as good the second day as the first. The reason I did not rate this higher on flavor was that I know not everyone likes Balsamic as well as I do, but it was also nice to taste a pot roast that wasn't the same old thing you normally have. After you try this one, let me know what you think! I'm curious if everyone liked it as much as I did.

Happy Eating!

Chicken with Bacon, Onions and Mushrooms

Today was one of those days I was so glad that I did a crockpot meal. Granted I don't think I'd do this one during a weekday again because it took 45 minutes of prep before I even drank my coffee. Not pretty, but do able. I was not too late to work, but now that I know it takes me almost an hour in the morning? Yeah, totally would make this for company on the weekend, but not during a weekday.

So this morning I rolled out of bed, took a shower and then cut up and fried a 1/2lb of bacon (Win!). That was the good news, the bad news is I smelled like bacon all day... Ok, that could be a good thing too, but I digress. As I mentioned this took 45 minutes this morning which when you think about it isn't that long and it had such great taste that it was well worth it. This evening after a full day at work, I decided I needed to detail my car so we actually didn't eat until nearly 9pm and I was HUNGRY. This means I skipped the final step of making gravy and just ate everything as is. It worked, but gravy would have been better. Real-simple, where I got the recipe, shows it being served over mashed potatoes, and I have to agree that would have made this a near perfect meal, so keep that in mind when you make this (because trust me, you'll want to!).  You could probably substitute Turkey Bacon in this meal if you have an issue with regular bacon, but you'd have to add some olive oil to the pan to brown the chicken...  Goodness I keep getting ahead of myself so that means I should just move onto the recipe.

Here is the original link: http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/slow-cooker-recipe-chicken-bacon-10000000614073/index.html

Crockpot Chicken with Bacon, Onions and Mushrooms

Ingredients 

1/2  pound sliced bacon (diced) 

6 chicken thighs (or breasts) 

1/2  cup  dry white wine(I used 2 buck chuck Pinot grigio) 

1/2  pound small white mushrooms 

1  cup  frozen small white onions (aka pearl onions) 

6 cloves of garlic, crushed 

3 sprigs of fresh rosemary (or 1 TBS of dried rosemary) 

1/4  cup  water 

2  tablespoons  cornstarch 

Salt and pepper.

Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-low heat until crisp.

With a slotted spoon, transfer it to a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker.

Pour off all but a light coating of fat from the skillet.

Add the chicken and brown over medium-high heat; transfer to the cooker.

Totally needed the splatter guard! Almost burnt the daylights out of myself!

Pour the wine into the skillet and scrape up any browned bits;

Add the skillet contents to the cooker, along with the mushrooms, onions, garlic, rosemary, and salt & pepper.

Soooo, my Rosemary was a bit worse for the wear as you can see. It was deader than a 1" squirrel on the road So I had to go with dried. It still worked and tasted good!

All the "other stuff" I used crushed garlic cubes again instead of cutting up my own garlic because its fast and I like it.

Look at that! Doesn't that look lovely? I think it is pretty delicious looking!

Cover and cook on low heat for 6 hours, or on high for 3 hours.

 

All cooked! YUM!

 Remove the chicken, veggies and bacon from the crockpot and set aside (keeping warm)
Pour the sauce into the gravy separator and then pour bottom liquid into a small saucepan.

THIS IS WHAT I FORGOT TO DO BUT WOULD HAVE BEEN TASTY. Combine the water and cornstarch; stir it into the sauce. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens, about 5 minutes.

Pour over the chicken & serve!

Almost like a lighter coq au vin! So yummy!

 So bottom line, TRY THIS AT HOME! Just be prepared to spend about 45 minutes to cook the bacon and brown the chicken.
Happy Eating ya'll!

3-2-1- cake

Good evening all! Who doesn't love cake? And who wouldn't want cake at the snap of your fingers? I got this recipe off of pinterest and I was a bit dubious. Blend together 2 cake mixes and some water and then toss it in the microwave? Are you sure? Usually this ends badly, I remember putting marshmallows in the microwave and although they puffed up nicely, they always were rock hard when they deflated. So I was imagining a brick of a "cake" that tasted awful and probably would require a chisel to remove from the mug. But instead, here is what I got!

Here is the original link to the recipe:
http://www.repinly.com/pin.aspx?pid=3472&p=1&by=repins&t=&cat=DIY%20%26%20Crafts&rnk=1

Ingredients for mix:
1 box Angel food cake
1 box any other flavor cake (I chose triple chocolate Duncan Hines)

One cake mix MUST be Angel food cake, but the other can be any flavor you like!

Put the 2 cake mixes together in a tupperware container and shake vigorously to mix

Label the top with tape and a sharpie to say: 3 TBS mix + 2 TBS water + 1 minute in the microwave

Then place 3 TBS of the mix in a mug

Add 2 TBS of water and mix thoroughly

Place mug in the microwave for 1 minute

Enjoy the cake!

Now if you're expecting a perfect cake this is not it, but its easy and not terrible for you and just the right size for single serving. I found that adding 1 TBS of  coconut to the cake mix was DELICIOUS! I also tried adding more chocolate chips, but they all fell to the bottom so it turned out more like a black-bottom. But you could easily dress this up enough to serve to guests and its so darn fast!
Hope you try it and let me know what you think!
Happy Eating!