Thursday, February 19, 2009

The meal for the terrible cook

If there is any meal that ANYONE can cook, its the pot roast. Easy to do, hard to screw up, no fail, effortless. Throw it all in the crock pot and go. I don't mess around with weird things like a can of coke or Italian dressing, these are just whole foods and whole ingredients letting their flavors speak for themselves.

Ingredient list:
2-3 lbs of roast beef or chuck roast (you want something with some fat on it or will be dry)
bag of baby carrots
3-4 potatoes cut in big chunks (I used yukon gold, did you know those are better for you than regular potatoes, they lean toward the sweet potato in health)
1 medium onion cut in big chunks
2-3 garlic cloves minced (or  a teaspoon of garlic powder, I am always a fresh garlic girl)
5-6 bay leaves
1/2-1 t thyme
2 T beef base (or you could use bullion cubes or beef stock, I am a beef base girl)
1-2 c water
Lots of salt and pepper

After breakfast (hopefully something good like steel cut oats, not rice chexs like I had this morning) heat up your crock pot. Meanwhile heat a skillet on high and liberally salt and pepper both sides of your meat. Put a little oil in the skillet and brown both sides of the meat. Once it is browned, put it in the crock pot along with the rest of the ingredients.  Cook on low till dinner time and serve (about 8-9 hours). 
You can do the same thing in the oven, after you have browned the meat cook at 325 degrees for 3-4 hours.
If you choose,  scoop all the meat and veggies out and pour the liquid into a sauce pan and make some gravy!
Forward this post on to all the people you know who eat taco bell for dinner with their families.  We need families eating real food people!

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