Crock Pot Roast Beef and Homemade Bread

Ah Sunday, what a fantastic day to spend in the kitchen. Probably one of my most favorite things to do is hop into the kitchen, crank up the Patriot's game, throw-on my Pancake! apron and cook up a storm! This past Sunday was even better though... we are a two football team household, Matt is a die-hard Brown's fan and I, as previously mentioned love the Patriots. The Brown's weren't playing Sunday which free's Matt up! Yay! Which also means he decided to take on the crock pot. Oh and I'm so glad he did! The man know's how to cook-up a mean piece of beef.  It's a very easy recipe that you could do with any piece of beef. We happened to snag a nice looking piece about 2-3lbs at the food store that morning. Fantastic. Unfortunately, we where too hungry before I snagged a photo of the final meat but I'm sure you can imagine how tasty it looked.

Easy Crock Pot Roast Beef
2-3lbs would feed about 4 ppl, it does shrink a bit while it cooks

Ingredients
Big hunk of meat - we used a 2lb piece of roast beef
1 cup (or at least 1/2 inch covering the bottom of pot) of soy sauce. (I have a large crock pot so we added a bit more sauce to ensure the bottom was covered.)
1 tsp salt and pepper covering both sides of meat
1 tsp of garlic salt
1 tsp of grilling spices
1 tablespoon flour (For gravy)

Steps

1. Turn your crock pot on high
2. Salt and pepper each side of the meat
3. Plop the meat into the crock pot
4. Add in the soy sauce - ensure that it covers the bottom of the pot, and about 1/2 inch up the side of the meat
5. Sprinkle in the garlic salt and grilling spices on top of the meat
6. Cover and DON'T TOUCH IT for at least 4 hours
7. Feel free to open and check starting at around 4.5 hours and cook until done. It should turn gray. 
8. After it's done, pull the meat out and set it aside to rest. If you cut into it right away, you'll let all the juices out. Letting it rest lets the juices soak into the meat.
9. Add the flour to the juices left in the crock pot. Mix to make a nice rich gravy. Add more or less flour depending on how thick you want your gravy.

While he tackled the beef, I decided that it was finally time to take on some homemade bread. I haven't perfected my recipe yet - but I'll share a few photos with you of my first pass. If you have an easy to make bread recipe, I'd love to check it out!

Polenta and Ground Beef

I don't cook a lot of beef. Honestly, I don't cook beef at all. I've spent most of my life not eating beef. One day when I was 7 my dad just stopped eating it, so my mom stopped cooking it and as a result I stopped as well. Recently over the past few years, I've picked it up again. Beef is really delicious. I don't think I could eat it every day but once a week is good.

Last night, I cooked ground beef. Yep. I sure did. I cooked it all by myself. Yay! Not really that hard... but if you've never cooked it before, it's ok to pat yourself on the back once in awhile. *pat pat pat*

It was a very simple recipe - I had some polenta lying around that I had been iching to cook as well. I love polenta - it's so easy to cook! It comes in a wonder tube that you just slice open and cut up! Yum!

Polenta and Ground Beef Lasagna-Casserole-Thing! HA! I need a better name - suggestions welcome.

Here's there recipe - very simple, not too terrible for you either (always an added benefit.)

Ingredients:
1 Shallot - (or you could use a small onion)
5 Garlic cloves - diced
8 Baby carrots - diced (or 1 large carrot)
1/2 cup Peas
1 pound Lean-ground beef
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 18 oz tube of polenta - cut into 1/4-inch slices
1 cup cheese - shredded cheese

Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. In a frying pan, on medium heat, plop a little olive oil and add in the shallots, peas, carros and garlic. 3. Let that get a little soft then add the meat.
4. Cook the meat till it's no longer pink and add in the Worcestershire sauce and tomatoes
5. Let that cook for about 10 minutes till the sauce reduces and thickens
6. In a pan - I used a 6 x 12ish pan? You could probably use a 8x8 as well - 9x13 may be a bit big... either way in a pan, put about half of the meat mixture on the bottom, a layer of polenta with a little cheese, then the rest of the meat and top with the rest of the polenta and cover that sucker with cheese!

7. I baked mine for about 25 minutes - I wanted the cheese to get a little crispy then I let it cook for about 10 - 15 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Chayote Stir-Fry

I was at Whole Foods earlier this week trying to hunt down some Rhubarb... Whole Foods does a fantastic job of setting up their shelves and providing the consumer with information on each of the products they are offering.

Because of this beautiful display (see below) I noticed a funny looking veggie called a Chayote. It looked like a green bum. I mean look at this thing! So funny looking I had to buy it.

I also had some vermicelli noodles that I was dying to cook as well... so why not make a little stir fry with my green Chayote. It tastes pretty neutral - the texture is similar to an asian apple-pear, fresh, watery and crisp but light. 

Chayote Stir-Fry

Serves 1 person

• 1 Chayote chopped up
• 1/4 cup peppers - chopped
• 1/4 cup peas
• 1/4 cup broccoli
• 3 cloves diced garlic
• General Tsao's sauce from Trader Joes
• Vermicelli noodles - how ever many you want to eat
• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock

Steps:

1. Soak the noodles for either 10 minutes in cold water, or 2 minutes in hot water
2. Dice up and mix up your veggies and garlic, pop them into a frying pan and sautee those suckers for about 5 minutes
3. Add in your sauce and chicken stock, I like a lot of sauce so I added about half a jar
4. Sautee that all together for another 5 minutes
5. Add noodles, and cook for another 5 minutes or so
6. Plate and serve. Pretty simple yet tasty!

Stuffed Peppers

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