New Family Fave...SO Easy!

Thanks to Slow Cooker Root Beer Pulled Pork Sandwiches  posted on Six Sisters' Stuff, we have a new addition to the list of favorite meals around here.  The family has requested it be a weekly dinner-- with plenty of leftovers for impromptu meals and snacks at other times.

With prior fails, I am still wary of Crock-Pot recipes.  But recent successes have made me braver at trying new ones.  

No Crock-Pot?  No worries.  See note at the end of this post.

This recipe was just too intriguing --with "Root Beer" in the title (yum!)-- and too easy --with only 3 ingredients and relatively no prep-- to pass up.

I threw 2 pork sirloin tip roasts (from Costco @ $1.99/pound), totaling just over 4 pounds, into my Crock-Pot.  I then poured in 12 ounces of root beer, and turned the crockpot to low for 7 or 8 hours.





After that time, following the directions given by Six Sisters, I removed the pork (for the most part, in pieces, because it was so well cooked and tender), and discarded the root beer.  

I shredded the pork and returned it to the now empty Crock-Pot  then stirred in 18 ounces of our favorite (**no-high-fructose-corn-syrup) barbecue sauce, Stubb's Sweet Heat Bar-B-Q Sauce.   It seemed a little drier than I wanted, so I changed the original recipe here, by adding approximately 1/2 cup of water to the empty bottle to swirl out any remaining sauce, and adding all to the pork mixture.


Inspired by the new Beef Brisket Sandwich at Costco, I served this on a toasted (homemade) bun spread with mayo, plus shredded cabbage and carrot mixture. (Prepared cole slaw, as served on the Beef Brisket Sandwich, would work, too.)  This adds a fresh and crisp element to the sandwich, as well as being a good way to sneak in some healthy veggies.

I am not a huge pork fan, nor a big fan of barbecue sauce. I figured it would be OK for my barbecue-sauce-loving family, even if I chose to make it only for nights I wasn't going to be able to be home for dinner.  As it turns out, I don't have to save this for nights I'm away.  I love it, too!!  --Better yet, it makes for a decent meal to take my dad, and he, who rarely comments about what I serve him, said, "You sure make a dandy burger!"  :-D



*Note:
If you don't have a Crock-Pot, you can still make this recipe.  I had 4 roasts I needed to cook in one day, and wanted some pork mixture to freeze for quick meals when needed by athletes and those who work during dinner hours.  So I put 2 of the roasts in the Crock-Pot  and the remaining 2, with root beer, into my 6-quart porcelain lined cast iron pot, put on the lid, and did the slow cooking in the oven at 275 degrees for the same 7 to 8 hour span.  (Same method I used for Beer-Onion Soup Mix Pot Roast.)  At the 5 to 6-hour point, the roasts looked a little dry on top, so I turned them over.  After cooking, I discarded the root beer, shred the meat, and added the barbecue sauce, as above.

**Note to myself and to others concerned with this issue: 
I made the effort to find a barbecue sauce without high fructose corn syrup, but the root beer I used, and also, the ketchup I've always used to make my homemade barbecue sauce both have high fructose corn syrup.  Time to find new brands for both.

Roast: You Choose the Pot

I have been trying to drive down to visit my dad 2 days a week.  The dining room has mediocre menus, at best, so one day I bring lunch, and one day I bring lunch and dinner, and we just enjoy a family meal in his little apartment.

This seems simple enough, but I really stress over it.  He has a limited diet for many reasons, including diabetes, heart and blood pressure concerns, and plain and simple pickiness.  ;-)  He doesn't like casseroles, salad as a main dish is difficult for him to maneuver and chew, and very few veggies meet his "acceptable list."  Now add that in his new digs he has only a microwave for cooking, and it gets even more difficult.

Meatloaf and meatballs work very well to meet his preferences, and keeps its texture reasonably when reheated in the microwave.  I have also taken the meatloaf raw, formed it into a doughnut shape inside a casserole dish, and cooked it in the microwave for 15 minutes with good results.  I don't know, though, if he was getting sick of meatloaf and meatballs, but I was.

I recently picked up a beef brisket sandwich, a new menu item at the Costco food court, which he really liked.  This reminded me that I might make a pot roast.  We bought half a beef last spring, and had roasts that should work.  I got out 2 arm roasts to defrost, and set out to find a recipe.  

I found Super Simple Crock Pot Roast, while my kitchen forum friend, JC, found me Slow-Cooked Beer-Braised Beef, which gave instructions for 2 options: putting the beef, raw, into the crockpot, or browning it on the stove in a Dutch oven, and then putting in pan and all, and slow roasting in the oven.  

I decided to use the oven method, and do my own combination of the 2 recipes.

Beer-Onion Soup Mix Pot Roast

Preheat oven to 275 degrees


Dry 
Arm or other chuck roast, approx 3 lbs 
thoroughly with paper towels, and season with salt and pepper.


Heat heavy, oven-safe pot that has a tight-fitting lid (just barely the size of the roast) over medium-high heat, add:
1-2 Tablespoons oil
the roast
and brown well on both/all sides.  -The roast will lift easily off the pan (not stick) when its properly seared. 






Put on top of roast:
1 envelope dry onion soup mix
12 oz beer (next time I'll double the beer or add at least a cup of water)
Pepper, Garlic powder, or your choice of spices

Put lid on pot, and place in oven for 6 to 8 hours.  Peek in during the latter hours of cooking to make sure there is still enough liquid.  

I put mine the oven at midnight, so it would be ready in the morning... Part to take to Dad, and the rest to leave for the family's dinner at home.  When I checked at 7 AM, the larger, red pot was almost dry and the roast was very dry on top.  I added more liquid and, thankfully, neither had burned.  But this is why I'll add more liquid and be more careful about pan size next time.



Add 
Coarsely chopped or chunked veggies of your choice:  potatoes, onion, carrots, turnips, beets...
and cook for an additional 45 minutes.








I wasn't sure that would be enough time for the veggies to cook through at such a low temperature, but they were perfect.  Tender, but not mushy.  

Also, I thought I'd need to remove the roast and veggies to make gravy, but the amount of liquid was minimal... Just enough to keep everything moist, and not require thickening.

For crockpot (I haven't tried this yet, so am basing this on the recipes linked above):  Browning the roast is optional.  Put the roast, onion soup mix, and beer or beer/water mixture, in the crockpot all at once.  Cook on low for 7 hours, or on high for an hour, and low for 4 hours.  Add veggies 45 minutes before serving, and continue cooking on low.

I've been having a little trouble with the family not finishing leftovers lately.  I didn't have that problem with this pot roast!  It's a winner... for ease and for taste.

Chicken Slop, Crockpot Style

3 years ago, I wrote about a weekly dinner staple here at RHome410 (Our Home for Ten), Mexican Chicken Slop... We have Prince Stoic to thank for the dish's lovely title.  :-)

It's fairly easy to make, but not as easy as this latest recipe, a variation of something I found posted on Facebook.  

I have never had much luck with crockpot recipes (dry meat, bland taste, lots of hassle), so use mine mostly as a warmer for the Hot Shrimp Dip we love.  (Recipe here)

But now our crockpot has new life, doing what it was intended... Making dinner slowly, all day, allowing me the freedom to accomplish other things, relieved in the knowledge that there will be no last minute panic about what to serve for dinner.  It's quite helpful on the nights when I'm off with Prince Go-for-It at baseball practice and the family comes home to an empty house, but happy to find a hot dinner, ready and waiting.

Crockpot Chicken Slop

Place into the crockpot:

2 1/2 to 3 pounds frozen chicken tenders (or breasts, sliced in 3 pieces, lengthwise)...Yes, FROZEN!
8 oz cream cheese
1 1/2 cups prepared salsa + 1/2 cup water (or 1 can Rotel seasoned tomatoes, undrained)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can whole kernel corn, drained

Nope...This is not a photo of the Crockpot Chicken Slop,
or, even, the Shrimp Dip.  But it is a glimpse
of a post to come (in front of the TV
 showing our SuperBowl-bound Seahawks--YAY!).
It's one of my favorite "quick-and-easy,
fill-the-freezer, then-fix-fast-dinners" solutions yet.

Cook for 6 to 8 hours in the crockpot.  

About 45 minutes before serving, prepare rice or quinoa, according to package directions, optionally cooking it in chicken broth instead of water.   -This can also be cooked ahead of time, and reheated for dinner. 

Immediately before serving, use 2 forks to shred chicken pieces before spooning the chicken and its sauce over the rice or quinoa.  May be served with your choice of accompaniments, such as thinly sliced lettuce, shredded cheese, black olives, refried beans, sour cream, and/or additional salsa.

Pictures of food will have to wait, while I can
spend my time doing things like this!

I'm Early... Or Late

Thanks to reader, Cheryl, who left the suggestion on A Confession, I have been thinking about cooking pork and sauerkraut with some of our applesauce.

Looking up recipes on the internet, I found that this is a traditional New Year's meal for the Pennsylvania Dutch.  Cheryl said it was great for fall, and it sure sounds ideal for this time of year to me.  So, instead of New Year's, it's Happy Fall to us!

Of course, all the recipes I found were not exactly the same.  I mostly followed the Crock Pot Pork and Sauerkraut recipe from Food.com, but was also influenced by some of the comments written there and other recipes...Plus a little free-wheeling of my own.

In my 6 1/2-quart crockpot, I started with 4 pounds of pork roast, 1/2 onion, sliced (not in the recipe), spiced with black pepper and garlic powder, a sprinkle of fennel instead of the recommended caraway, and covered in 2 pounds of sauerkraut. (Some recipes said the caraway was essential, but I can't stand the stuff.  Some commenters mentioned they used cumin or fennel instead.) The instructions say to include the liquid, but I just couldn't put all that salt in, so poured what I could (without trying too hard) from the jar and added some water back in before putting it all on the pork.

Then I mixed about 3/4 cup of applesauce (more than twice what the recipe said), 2 or 3 Tablespoons of spicy brown mustard (not in the recipe at all), and 1/4 cup of brown sugar, very loosely packed, since some of the comments mentioned the 1/4 cup called for made the dish too sweet.  I poured this over the sauerkraut.


When I checked the recipe, I noticed I was supposed to have put the applesauce on the meat, then the sauerkraut, with the brown sugar sprinkled on top.  So I worked the applesauce mixture into the sauerkraut, as an adjustment, hoping it would work out about the same.








Because the recipe says it would serve 6, and I wanted it to go further, I added 2 mondo (reference to their giant size, not a particular type) sweet potatoes.  Sweet potatoes seem, to me, a natural choice with these other ingredients, but the traditional meal is served with mashed potatoes.




I thought I'd have to cut the meat into chunks, but with just a turn of the meat fork, the tender meat just shredded.  The sweet potato was a good call... Next time I'll try the cumin, and add chunks of apple and maybe some carrots and/or golden beets.  The sauerkraut is subtle, so while I wished for more of that flavor, Prince Inventive, who isn't a fan still detected it. I will go ahead and add the full strength liquid next time, as it could've used more salt.

I LOVE those days when I'm able to get dinner cooking by 8 AM and not have to think about it again until time to enjoy it.  This night, we were happy to fill up a bowl and sit down together to watch the Seahawks battle the Cardinals.  :-D

31 Days at The Nesting Place

(Almost) Wordless (on Almost) Wednesday

I was forced to 'take it slow' on Monday. --There was a theme going on in my kitchen!

1)  Roasts in the slow cookers for a new French Dip Sandwich recipe...

I'd planned to list the easy recipe here,
but I think it could use some tweaking first.

2)  Apples in the pot for hours of low and slow cooking to make more applesauce (2nd to the last batch!)...

And, 
3)  The slow and low baking...   

...Something I'll have to tell you about tomorrow!

Sorry to "upset the apple cart," but due to an unexpected brown sugar outage here, today's reveal will have to wait until tomorrow.  :)

31 Days at The Nesting Place