Pot Roast in a Crock Pot with Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Spinach

If you want to cook something really easy for dinner, use a crock pot.  It cuts down your time in the kitchen and you create less dishes to clean.

Pot Roast in a Crock Pot
1 - 3 pound grass fed rump roast
1-1/2 cups red wine
2 cups beef broth
2 bay leaves
Very small onion, finely chopped
1-1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
Add roast to the crock pot, add all other ingredients.  Turn crock pot on high and let cook for several hours.  I cooked mine for about 6 hours.  About an hour or so before serving, flip meat over.  You can use a little bit of the juice to serve over your meat.
 
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
2 sweet potatoes - the one I had actually was the size of two so I used it instead
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup coconut milk
Peel and chop sweet potato.  Place chopped sweet potatoes into a sauce pan with water.  Place on stove and cook over high heat until sweet potatoes are tender (could take upwards of 15 minutes, depending on the potato).  Once cooked remove from heat and drain in a colander.  Place potatoes back into the saucepan and place back on the burner, without heat.  Add butter and mash using a potato masher.  Once all large pieces are mashed, add a little bit of coconut milk and mash.  Continue to add more coconut milk until you get the consistency you want.  Add a little bit of salt and pepper and serve.

Wilted Spinach
1 package of fresh baby spinach
1 garlic clove, minced
Little bit of olive oil, just a small amount
In a large skillet, add olive oil and heat over medium high heat.  Add garlic, stir, add spinach.  Toss spinach in pan so that the olive oil mixes with the spinach.  Continue to toss until spinach has lost its crispness.  Don't cook it too much or it will become mushy.  Serve with a little salt and pepper.

Serve dinner with a nice wine.  We served our meal with a 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon from Hickory Hill Vineyards located in Moneta, Virginia.

Savory Pot Roast

Do you ever just need comfort food?  My usual comfort food is a big bowl of macaroni and cheese but for tonight I did a roast with noodles and cabbage.  Even though it isn't my normal comfort food, pot roast has a heartiness to it, that for me makes it comfort food.

I would really love to know what is your favorite go to comfort food.  Please feel free to share this with me by commenting at the bottom of this post.  I would love to hear from you!

Savory Pot Roast
This recipe comes from an A1 booklet I picked up years ago.  The cooked pot roast reminds me slightly of sauerbraten (which is marinated for several days and then cooked) with its taste and texture.

I doubled the sauce part of this recipe and used a 4 pound bottom round roast.
1 -2-/12 pound bottom round roast
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup A1 steak sauce
1/2 cup catsup or ketchup (really depends on how you spell it)
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Preheat oven to 325 degree Fahrenheit.  In a large heavy pot, over medium high heat, brown roast in hot oil (all sides), drain.
Blend the next five ingredients into a bowl, pour over meat.  Cover pot and place into oven and cook for 3 hours.  Remove meat from pan and place on a platter to rest for about 10 minutes, slice.  Use gravy over sliced meat.

Serve with buttered noodles and sweet and sour red cabbage.

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Pot Roast with Spatzles

Pot Roast

1 - 4 to 5 pound grass fed top sirloin roast (you could really use anything)

1/2 cup water

1 onion, coarsely chopped 

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup ketchup

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup red wine

Place roast in a large pan (that has a lid).  In a large bowl combine the remaining ingredients, pour over roast.  Place pan into a 300 degree Fahrenheit oven for 1 hour.  Spoon sauce over roast.  Raise temperature of oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit, place lid on pan and cook for about 1 hour more.  Depending on the size of your roast, you may have to cook it longer.  You will want it to get to an internal temperature of 165 degree Fahrenheit.  Remove roast from pan, tent with foil to rest.  Place pan with sauce in it on the stove top and cook until reduced.  Make sure that you stir it so that it doesn't burn or stick to the bottom of the pan.  Serve  sauce over sliced meat. 

Spatzle

I make these without a spatzle maker.  I have one but don't use it because quite frankly, I hate to clean it.  So I drop the dough by uses spoons.

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon white pepper

3 eggs, slightly beaten

1 cup water

Butter (to toss cooked spatzle with)

Combine flour, salt and pepper in a bowl; make a well in the center.  Add eggs and water to well and mix thoroughly.  Scoop up dough on a spoon and with another spoon cut off small little pieces of dough into a pot of boiling salted water.  As the spatzle rise to the top, remove with a slotted spoon and put into a covered bowl with a little bit of butter until all are made.  Toss with more butter if needed and serve. 

I served this meal with cooked frozen green peas.

Pot Roast with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Asparagus

Finally remembered to pull a roast from the freezer to thaw.  I have wanted a roast for a while but kept forgetting to take it from the freezer.  Decided to make a recipe from the Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook.

California Pot Roast
1 - 4 to 5 pound rump roast (can use chuck or round roast)
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup water
2 cups tomato sauce, fresh or canned (I used fresh)
1 onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
Rub roast with salt and pepper.  Heat olive oil over medium high heat, brown roast for about 3 minutes per side.  Place the meat in a slow cooker with the water, tomato sauce, onion and garlic.  Cook on low heat all day, for about 5 or 6 hours.
About 1-1/4 hours before you are ready to eat, combine brown sugar, dry mustard, lemon juice, vinegar, ketchup and Worcestershire sauce.  Pour over meat, and continue cooking for another hour until fork tender.
Remove meat, slice, and place on a warm platter.  Meanwhile, let the sauce thicken by simmering on the stove for a few minutes; pour over sliced roast and serve.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
olive oil
clove of garlic, peeled
Place cut sweet potatoes and garlic into a ziploc bag, add just enough olive oil to coat the potatoes.  Pour potatoes and garlic onto a cookie sheet.  Spread sweet potatoes out so that they have enough room and are not over lapped.  Cook in a preheated 450 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 30 minutes.  The time will depend on the size of the chunks of potatoes.  You want them slightly browned and tender.

Cooked Asparagus with Citrus and Caper Aioli
I got this recipe out of a magazine at a doctors office or somewhere there was a waiting room.  I find when I am looking at magazines in a waiting room I find all kinds of wonderful sounded recipes.  I use my cell phone to photograph the recipe.  Sometimes you have to photograph it in parts but as long as you have it you are good to go.  I wish I knew what magazine this came out of so that I could give it credit (if anyone knows please comment and tell me).
For less heat, omit the Calabrian chiles and add a pinch of dried crushed red pepper.
2 large eggs
1 large garlic clove, pressed
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2-1/4 cups olive oil (I used extra virgin olive oil)
1 Calabrian or other hot chile pepper, stem removed (I used crushed red pepper since I didn't have the others)
1 teaspoon capers
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Combine first 3 ingredients in a food processor or blender, and process until well blended.  With processor on, slowly pour in oil; process until smooth.  Add chile and next 3 ingredients, pulsing until well mixed.  If aioli is too thick, stir in water until it reached the desired consistency.  Makes 3 cups.
The recipe uses this over grilled asparagus.  Since we were not grilling out I decided to use this over cooked asparagus.  Place wash and snapped asparagus into a pot of salted boiling water and cook for 5 minutes.  The time make change depending on the diameter of the asparagus.  Drizzle aioli over cooked asparagus.
One note about this aioli:  I used extra virgin olive oil which has a strong taste so you may want to adjust your seasonings to your liking.  Also this aioli would be great for sandwiches.