Being a busy, single, working mom who has yet to perfect the art of stress-free healthy cooking, the concept of Savory Suppers is really great. I picked 6 meals from a list of 20 and Anne went to the Atkins’ kitchen to bag the freshly chopped ingredients. She came to my house with 12 meals (each one serves 4 people and we're only 2), ready to freeze and cook according to the easy to follow instructions. The line up of Thai beef with rice, pork medallions with wine glazed carrots, and baked buttermilk chicken, to name a few of our choices, took only 30 minutes to prepare.
We enjoyed the meals so much, we just had to go for a ride to Atkins so JJ could see the place that we would go in the future to prep some of our meals. The kitchen was closed but we purchased a few new-to-us fruits and vegetables (apricots and kale) to try at home. As it turns out, we didn’t actually eat the apricots or kale before it went bad but we did buy them...it’s a start! We plan to go shopping at Atkins again this week and we will make kale chips right away!
In my May cooking session with Deb, we made pot roast with red potatoes, onions, carrots and parsnips (another new to us vegetable, we ate it and we liked it). I served it with a delicious red wine gravy per Deb’s directions (I’m getting pretty good at making home-made gravy if I must say so myself). There’s a funny twist to my story - we have dinner at my mother’s once a week. The day we made our pot roast (pictured above, recipe below) was the day before dinner at Mom’s.
Guess what she made? Yup, pot roast. And guess what else? Mine was better on all counts but one.
She served cheesy whipped spuds instead of making chunky potatoes cooked in with the roast. For that, she gets a veggie sides win and a request from me for her recipe!
Easy Slow Cooker Pot Roast
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 Bay leaf
1 (1 1/2-pound) boneless beef chuck roast, trimmed of excess fat
3 tablespoons canola or extra virgin olive oil
3 or 4 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
2 or 3 potatoes, cut into quarters
1 small onions, cut into wedges
1/2 teaspoon garlic, minced
1/2 cup red wine
1 can reduced-sodium beef broth
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
Directions:
On a plate, combine flour, salt, pepper and thyme. Dredge meat in flour, coating all sides. Heat oil in a large saucepan and brown meat on both sides, turning once, about 5 minutes total. Meanwhile, place carrots, potatoes, onion, Bay leaf and garlic in a 5 or 6-quart slow cooker. Top with browned roast.
Pour 1/2 cup red wine into the pan you browned the roast in, scrape up any browned bits and add that rich liquid to the slow cooker along with the beef broth and tomato paste. Cover and cook until beef and vegetables are very tender, 8 hours on the low-heat setting or 5 hours on the high-heat setting.
If gravy is too thin, use the cornstarch and wine thickening trick.
