Recipe Review from 6/11/2018

Rain rain, go away, come back another day...

It's been a bit dampish this past week and weekend.  

We've had a few restless night with one anxious Andy-dog and the storms rolling through.  Hopefully the pup won't pick up this anxiety like Andy did from his "brother' Ben.  

In the meantime, I made some tasty meals.  The Pasta Salad hasn't been posted yet so I'll have to come back and write that up later.

The Meal Plan from last week:
Sat: (L) Salmon Pasta Salad    (L) Slow Cook Drip Beef Sandwiches
Sun:  (L)  out                  (S)  leftovers
Mon (yoga):  leftovers
Tues: leftovers
Wed:  Warm Pasta Salad with Eggplant
Thurs (yoga)  leftovers
Fri:  leftovers if any

Lunches:  me - hummus/cheese sandwiches
                Husband - veggies and fruit


Slow Cooker Drip Beef Sandwiches  (Valeries Kitchen blog)
I will first admit, I am not a beef person.  Not my preference.  Now I will admit - this was darn tasty.  And so easy!  Toss meat in the slow cooker, walk away.  Come back later and shred.  To the shredded meat add the sauted onion, bell peppers and garlic.  I did lightly toast the hoagie rolls first, then added the beef, and popped back under the broiler until the cheese was lightly melted. 

I didn't serve anything extra on the side, but the sky's really the limit.  You can go as simple as chips, or more elaborate with tater tots, or all out with homemade potato salad, broccoli salad, coleslaw and more.

This made three meals for two of us, plus one lunch.  So about 6-ish meals with a 3.25 lb cut of meat..

Recommended.

Photo from Valeries Kitchen blog

• 1 3-1/2 to 4 pound boneless beef chuck shoulder pot roast
• 1 cup low-sodium beef broth
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 2 teaspoons garlic pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 small white or yellow onion thinly sliced
• 1 large or 2 small bell peppers thinly sliced
• 1 8 ounce package cremini (brown button) mushrooms, roughly chopped
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 6 to 8 hoagie rolls
• 6 to 8 slices provolone cheese

1. Trim roast of excess fat and cut into large 3 or 4 large chunks. Place in slow cooker. Pour beef broth and Worcestershire around roast. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning, garlic pepper, and salt. Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 9 hours or until beef can easily be shredded.
   
2. Skim and discard fat from surface of cooking liquid (see note below for my tips). Use two forks to shred beef into the cooking liquid. Keep warm.
   
3. When ready to serve, melt butter in a saute pan over medium heat. Add onion and bell peppers and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 4 minutes or until veggies have softened slightly. Add mushrooms and garlic and cook for an additional 2 minutes, until mushrooms have softened. Season with salt and pepper to taste and remove from heat. Transfer cooked veggies to the slow cooker with shredded beef. Load up hoagie rolls with beef and veggies and a slice of provolone cheese and pop them under your broiler until cheese has melted and bread is lightly toasted.

Authors Recipe Notes:

Chuck roast is a fatty cut of beef so in order to remove as much of that fat from the cooking liquid as possible, I like to cook this a day in advance. After the initial cooking time and before shredding the beef, I allow it to cool and then refrigerate it overnight in the slow cooker insert. The next morning the fat will have collected on the surface of the liquid and be very easy to remove. Then I return the insert to the slow cooker and when the beef is warm, I shred it and continue with the recipe as written.