Tuscan Pot Roast

Most food bloggers will admit it.... 
Sometimes it's hard to get amped up to blog. 

Hey, we love cooking, but if you have to stop and double check all your ingredients, check if your kitchen is clean and where the HECK is your camera again, sometimes you just say "I'm just making dinner, not blogging".
And then it happens....
The dinner starts to become something you know you want to share, you want to talk about, you want your readers to know that this is the one to make too.  This made a wonderfully flavorful pot roast with Italian sauce and veggies and so comforting served over polenta. I've made polenta before, which is just about the easiest thing, but if you want a quick, easy recipe check it out.

We've been in our new house for less than a month, and somewhere my little camera sits, waiting, waiting for me to find it.  I've been using my cell phone because someone keeps telling me that it has the same megapixels as the camera I favor for blogging.  It seems different. I miss my little camera.  Oh, we have a fancy ole SLR camera, but since my hands are usually messy and food is sometimes flying in the kitchen, I just can't trust myself to be as careful as I should be. 

Finally, I had to ask for a new camera for my birthday, so going forward I am hoping my photos are better.  And now I have a spare for when I drop mine in the sauce, the sink or the soup!  huh?

I apologize that the photos aren't that great, but not too shabby with a cell phone,

Serves 4-8
Ingredients
2-3lb. beef pot roast
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
Kosher salt and fresh pepper

2 onions, cut into large chunks
2-3 stalks celery
2-3 carrots, cut into chunks
1 red pepper, cut into chunks
8 oz. mushrooms, cut into quarters
14oz can of diced tomatoes, and juice
6oz can of tomato paste
1 1/2 cups dry red wine
1 1/2 Tbsp Italian seasoning
6-8 cloves garlic, cut into chunks

Add the olive oil to a pot over medium high heat, salt & pepper your pot roast generously and brown on each side for 4-5 minutes until you get a nice brown sear.  Add the onions and peppers and stir them around the sides of the beef for a couple minutes.  

Add the red wine, carrots, celery, mushrooms, tomatoes & juice, tomato paste, garlic and seasoning.  Stir well and bring to a boil.  Cover and add to a 350 degree oven for about 1 1/2 hours.

Lazy Girl Crock pot version- Brown the pot roast and add to your crock pot.  Add the rest of the ingredients and stir well.  Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours, or high for 4 hours. If it's not as thick as you like, take the lid off and cook uncovered for the last 30-60 minutes.

NOTE: Just so you know, if you are feeling really, really lazy you could add the pot roast to the crock pot without browning it.  You get more taste from browning it, so I do recommend it.  But if you are trying to run out the door one morning when you are throwing this in the crock pot. I totally understand why you wouldn't.  I've been there, oh yes, yes I have.


This would also be great served over noodles or even mashed potatoes. Enjoy!

Best, Easy Homemade Chicken Stock

I love to make chicken stock.
I know a lot of people buy it in little containers.

I do too sometimes, in a pinch.  But I do regularly make my own stock.
It is really easy, and the ingredients are closer than you think. And yes, I do work full-time "plus" these days and still do it.

I also freeze it in "good to go" containers much like those little boxes that cost $3.  

Hmmmm.... lemme see, $4.99 for a chicken dinner plus about 3 equivalent boxes of stock.  Now that makes good sense and tastes WAY better!

Every time I go to Costco I buy one of their $4.99 roast chickens.  The main reason is that I love them and they taste great.  What a easy dinner, or two.  But the best reason to buy a Costco roast chicken is to make chicken stock. I know, you think I'm crazy.  But I do even make stock on a Tuesday night, when I get home, while I am making dinner just because I CAN! Obviously, you don't have to buy a roast chicken at Costco when they are available at any grocery store, but the Costco ones are VASTLY superior.  Yup, I can't lie, they are sooooooo much better, it's not even funny.  Spend $6.99 for a scrawny little chicken at Albertsons, or $4.99 for plump, juicy roast chicken at Costco.  I know what I want, and I CAN taste the difference in my stock.

I like the roast chicken carcass for a couple of reasons, the first is that it is already roasted/browned and therefore, you get lots of flavor from it, and second, it is truly the leftovers, and you are making good use of it.

Good stock uses veggies too.  You can use whole carrots, celery and onion quarters but I have a better idea.

During the week, every time I cook, I save the bits and pieces of the veggies

and throw them in a ziploc bag in the freezer, so when I am ready to make stock, I can reach in the freezer and I am ready to go.  It looks like this.

Here's what I usually save for stock
- Carrots

- Celery

- Onions (skin and all)
- Green Onions
- Leeks tops

- Garlic
- Fresh Parsley, even just the stems

I try to avoid the following because it sometimes makes it bitter, or "off" flavor, but really it IS up to you!
- Broccoli
- Bell Peppers
- Zucchini
- Radishes
- One caution about onions, don't save too many of the brown onion skins, once I used a bunch and got a much more bitter "tannin-like" broth.

I pull the chicken meat off the bones and retain it for another use (need some ideas? see below or my "Got it, Cook it" page for cooked chicken.  It's kind of hard to see from the picture, but the container on the right is bones and the one of the left is the chicken meat I pulled off.  I left a bit of chicken on the bones (because I am a lazy cook) because it tastes good in the stock.

Throw all the bones and any meaty bits you don't intend to eat at in a stock pot (mines about 12 qt), add the veggies, a bay leaf, some peppercorns and some garlic. Add water to about 2" from the top.  Bring to a boil, then immediately drop the heat to about medium low and simmer for 1-2 hours on low heat. 

Here's what it looks like after a couple hours:

Drain the broth from the veggies and bones.  Cool the stock.  If you see some especially meaty bits in the stock solids, you can 'pick the bones' as my dear ole'Mum used to say and shred any chicken bits to add to soup later on.

Once your stock is cooled in the fridge, if it stiffens up like Chicken Jello, then congratulate yourself, you have succeeded in making some slam dunking wonderful chicken stock. You can pick off the cold chicken fat that has accumulated too at this point.

I pour my stock into 4 cup containers, about 1" from the top and freeze or refrigerator.

See the white yogurt container?  I use the old containers for stock in my freezer, marking the top with STOCK.  Easy to see in the freezer and a nice way to reuse containers!