Pacifico Pulled Pork Tacos

This is Carolina barbeque meets Mexico City street food. In short, me gusta!


The ingredient list looks long, and it is. If you're not a compulsive spice hoarder like me, you can certainly feel free to leave a few of these out, unless you feel like stocking your spice cabinet. This would also be just fine if you don't happen to have Pacifico lying around - any other beer (or chicken stock, or beef broth, or water) would work just fine. And if you can't find the curious cut of meat called a "pork picnic?" You guessed it - not to worry. Any old cheap cut of pork (or beef) would work beautifully.


In fact, even after eating about a quarter of our pork picnic, I'd be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what it is - but at $4 for 2-3 lbs., you can bet it was a part of the pig you would not want to eat unless you'd cooked it all day. All I know is, I fished out what was unmistakably a ball joint bone from the Crockpot, so I'm guessing it was either a shoulder cut or a hind-quarters cut. Regardless of where on the little porky guy it came from, it was downright delicious after a juicy all-night bath and about 10 hours in the slow cooker.


Despite its formidable ingredient list, this dish is definitely worth making! It was inspired by a post on Smitten Kitchen which originally used beef brisket. I've made a similar dish with beef before, and it was great. At this point in the post, I sound like a broken record, so I'll wrap it up and take you to the directions. I hope you like this as much as Ross and I did!


Wait, wait, one more thing! Sorry about the grainy photos - none of our cameras had charged batteries, so I resorted to snapping pics of this on my iPhone - it was too good not to document! Better photos next time, promise :-)

INGREDIENTS

1 large pork...piece (mine was called, as mentioned earlier, a "pork picnic" - basically a big hunk of cheap meat; mine was about 3 lbs. before being cooked - a lot of it cooks off, and you'll need to discard some fat both before and after cooking)
3 T. olive oil
1 bottle Pacifico beer
1 14.5-oz. can "Mexican" diced tomatoes and all juices
1 onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, smashed
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 T. cumin
1-2 T. hot Mexican chili powder
1 T. paprika
1 cinnamon stick
juice of 2 limes
2 bay leaves
several heaping spoonfuls brown sugar
a few dashes cayenne pepper
1/2 T. ground coriander
salt and black pepper

corn tortillas
1 T. olive oil
salt and pepper
1 onion, julienned
2 poblano peppers, julienned
fresh cilantro, chopped
juice of one lime
sour cream (I used light)

one 28-oz can Mexican-spiced black beans, drained
one can Mxican-spiced tomatoes and all juices
fresh chopped cilantro

MORE NOTES ON SWAPS: If you want to skip the poblano/onion topping and sour cream-lime sauce, be my guest. This would ve fine topped with any taco fixin's you like...and under tons of melty, gooey cheese...? [CUT TO EXTREME CLOSE UP OF ME DROOLING.] If you like flour tortillas, use those. If you want to skip the taco building altogether and stand over the crockpot and eat the damn pork with a spoon, I wouldn't blame you.

STEP ONE:

The night before you want to eat this (or the morning of), trim the pork of any big pieces of obvious fat, and heat the oil in a pan and brown the pork on both sides, seasoning liberally with salt and pepper, until browned.

STEP TWO:

Meanwhile, in your Crockpot's interior pot (the one that can be removed, not the electrical part), add the beer, tomatoes, lime juice, all spices, onion, garlic, and brown sugar. When the pork is browned, transfer it to the liquid. Turn off the heat in the browning pan and pour in the vinegar, scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze it. Pour this into the Crockpot too. Cover and refrigerate until the morning.

STEP THREE:

Place the inner pot into the Crockpot and turn on low. Cook for 8-10 hours. Remove the pork from the pot and place on a plate or cutting board. With two forks, shred the meat, discarding any too-fatty bits. Meanwhile, strain the cooking liquid over a pot. Boil until reduced by half. Return the shredded pork and about 1 cup of the reduced liquid to the pot and mix together (you can also skip this step entirely - or, you can use an immersion blender to puree the wilted veggies and juices together - whatever you prefer).

STEP FOUR:

In a pan, heat the other 1 T. oil. Cook the poblano peppers and onions until softened, seasoning with salt and pepper. In a small bowl, mix together the fresh chopped cilantro, juice of one lime, and a few big spoonfuls of sour cream. Set aside, refigerated.

STEP FIVE:

Place the beans and tomatoes in a pot. Boil until much of the tomato juices have steamed off and the mixture has thickened. Stir in the fresh cilantro. Serve in individual cups or small bowls. Serve the shredded pork in the tortillas, top with the poblano/onion mixture and sour cream-lime sauce. Serve with the beans & tomato. Enjoy!

Russian Pot Roast with Sour Cream-Dill Sauce

Here we are again with another dish of questionable national origins (remember my "Spanish" dish from last night?). I deemed this "Russian" pot roast because the combination of red meat, egg noodles, cabbage, and sour cream says Russian to me.


Regardless of its origins, this was a simple, satisfying dish. I don't do a lot of things on this blog that I would describe as "family friendly" (enjoying strange, spicy, and ethnic foods on a daily basis is one of the many perks of being child-free), but I think this is something kids would like - provided you leave the "green stuff" (dill) out of the sour cream topping. In fact, the cabbage is so unrecognizable after cooking with meat all day, no child of average intelligence would be able to pinpoint a single vegetable in this meal!


This meal really stoked my frugal side - the side of me that hates to throw anything away. I had an almost-completely-full jar of red cabbage kraut in the fridge from my reuben tartines a few days ago, and frankly, what was I going to do with that? Then came the sherry wine from my foray into Spanish cuisine, and - being the only wine I've ever not wanted to drink - it needed to be used for cooking. And then there was the sour cream, which, if not integrated into a specific meal, would surely get inhaled by me in a tortilla-chip-wielding, late-night attack.


So you see that I had no choice but to make this exact dish, and it all - miraculously - worked. It was really good! Savory, tangy, subtly sweet, and ridiculously low-maintenance. All I did was throw everything into the crockpot, boil some noodles, and mix up a quick sour cream sauce. If you don't have an overage of sherry (and why would you?), you could substitute regular white wine, or red wine, or just beef stock with a few dashes of vinegar. Hell, you could even use water, although you'd have to do a little more work to punch up the flavor. But if you're at all a fan of sauerkraut (sauerkraut people are, truly, my kind of people), make this dish ASAP! NOTE: red-meat-loving boyfriends will also swoon.


INGREDIENTS

1 very lean top round roast, about 1 and 1/4 lbs.
vegetable oil
salt and pepper
about a cup (or more) jarred pickled red cabbage (this is like sauerkraut, only purple, found on the same shelf)
3/4 bottle sherry wine (not cooking sherry)
1 medium onion, cut into chunks
juice of 1/2 a lemon
salt and pepper
cooked egg noodles
1/2-3/4 c. lowfat sour cream
juice of 1/2 a lemon
handful fresh dill, chopped


STEP 1:

Get a pan screaming hot. Drizzle in some vegetable oil. Brown the meat, seasoning with salt and pepper, on both sides. The browner the better.

STEP 2:

In your slow cooker, put the sherry, onion, red cabbage, and lemon juice. Add a little salt and pepper. When the meat is done browning, nestle it in the crockpot. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

STEP 3:

Uncover the meat. Set a strainer over a pot and strain the meat and cabbage over the pot, catching the liquid in the pot. Return the meat and cabbage to the Crockpot and turn off the heat. Cover it. Bring the cooking liquid to a boil and cook until reduced by half. Taste and adjust seasoning. Meanwhile, boil the egg noodles.

STEP 4:

Return the cooking liquid to the Crockpot with the meat and cabbage. With two forks, tear the meat apart and mix together with the cabbage (mine was actually so tender that I just took a spoon to it, and it came apart very easily).

STEP 5:

Mix the sour cream, dill, and lemon juice with a little salt and pepper. Serve the meat, cabbage, and cooking liquid over hot buttered egg noodles. Top with the sour cream sauce. Enjoy!

Lamb Stew with Exotic Flavors PLUS Bonus Dinner!

Whenever I go to yoga, it makes me think of India. I have a small - OK large -
obsession with that country...and no, I haven't been there - yet (I'm currently accepting donations to the Send Me to India Fund - rupees and dollars accepted).

This manifests itself in a myriad of ways: a chai latte at Starbucks, microwaveable palak paneer pouches, and - if I'm most fortunate - a trip to the Indian buffet. At the very least, my yoga-cum-Indian-cravings at the very least motivate me to scrounge through my spice cabinet for interesting flavors.


I had almost forgotten about my half-pouch of ras el hanout from my trip to the Spice House awhile back. I thought it would be the perfect way to lend a transcontinental flair to the lamb stew I was planning on making this evening (from the leftover Mint Creek farm lamb that I'd frozen). Frankly, I wasn't sure how the ras el hanout would blend with the spices that I'd rubbed on the lamb before (garlic, thyme, etc.), but this being the Fearless kitchen and all, I figured I'd throw it all in and see what came of it.

Oh - now might be the time in my narrative to explain that ras el hanout is not actually an Indian spice - it's Middle Eastern. Sometimes, my Indian obsession manifests itself in ways that, quite frankly, make very little geographical sense. That notwithstanding, I present to you:

LAMB STEW WITH EXOTIC FLAVORS OVER COUSCOUS

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. lamb leg (mine was previously roasted and frozen; fresh would obviously be ideal)
1 large baking potato, unpeeled, cut into large chunks
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into large chunks
1/2 red onion (or any onion), chunked
1 and 1/2 T. ras el hanout
2 c. chicken broth
1 c. cooked whole wheat couscous
chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
salt and pepper


STEP ONE:

Combine all ingredients except for couscous in Crockpot. Cook over low for 6 hours, until lamb is spoon-tender.*

STEP TWO:

Cook couscous according to package directions. Serve lamb stew over couscous and top with cilantro. Enjoy!

*When cooking in a Crockpot, I never season with salt and pepper until the very end. The nature of slow-cooking dictates that you can't taste your dish all along, so I recommend waiting until the end to season, so you don't grossly oversalt something.

The lamb stew came out really well - the lamb was fall-apart tender, the potatoes were hearty, and the ras el hanout made it all interesting. The flavors of ras el hanout are so different from typical, everyday American flavors - I really encourage you to try some if you happen across it.

I wanted to include this little BONUS recipe, just because I made it the other night, and I thought it would be a great introduction to those just beginning to experiment in the kitchen. So many people say to me, "I read your blog, but I know I could never make those recipes!" Not true. Something like the beans-rice-and-sausage recipe below (inspired by the much more complex jambalaya, a favorite of mine) is something that literally an 8-year-old could make (provided he or she could safely wield a can-opener).

I whipped this up on a chill Saturday night in, and it was the perfect bowl of hearty goodness to curl up and eat on the couch, book in hand. (It would also be wonderful topped with a dollop of sour cream.) So to those of you who wouldn't know a whisk from a waffle iron, behold the following: a meal you can make at home, easily and quickly, with very inexpensive ingredients. Magic!

EASIEST DINNER EVER, A.K.A. BEANS, RICE, AND KIELBASA

INGREDIENTS

about 15 thin slices kielbasa sausage*
1 can "Southwest" style black beans
1 can stewed tomatoes
1/2 c. dry white rice
splash of chicken broth
squeeze of hot sauce
chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

*I have a ton of kielbasa around due to my CostCo trip awhile back, but this is also great with chicken, shrimp, or really any variety of sausage (turkey Italian sausage would be good), or with tofu if you're a vegetarian. If you don't like tofu but don't eat meat, I'd throw in something with a neutral flavor, like zucchini. It would also be good with butternut squash.


STEP ONE:

In a large skillet, brown kielbasa. Do not drain.

STEP TWO:

Add the beans with liquid, tomatoes with juices, and rice to the skillet. Cover and cook until the rice is tender, about 10 minutes, adding a little chicken broth if the mixture isn't liquidy enough. Stir in the hot sauce and top with cilantro. Enjoy!

Recession: Party of One - Roast Beef with Carrots & Ras el Hanout

Sometimes you just crave plain old red meat. And while this dish was far from plain, it was indeed a hunk of red meat...mmmm. (I'm using the unending April snow as justification for such a hearty dinner.)


I'll just jump right in, since there's not much to say about today that can't be summed up by my irrepressible urge to stop into my local convenience store en route to my apartment and grab a bottle of red (and they happened to have my very favorite kind - fate?).

SLOW-ROASTED BEEF WITH RAS EL HANOUT, CARROTS, & RED LENTILS

BEEF

One smallish chunk (two serving sizes, about 8 oz.) lean red roasting beef
1/4 white onion, chunked
1 very large carrot, cut into large chunks
1/3 c. water
1/3 c. chicken broth
glug of olive oil
1 T. ras el hanout (Mediterranean spice blend)
1 T. freshly gratd ginger
a couple splashes white wine vinegar
pepper
(the salt comes later)

LENTILS

1/2 c. dry red lentils
1 c. chicken broth
salt and pepper
drizzle olive oil
freshly chopped parsley



STEP ONE:

In the morning before work, combine all ingredients under "BEEF" in a Crockpot. Set to low and cook, covered of course, until you get home, about 8 hours.

STEP TWO:

In a small saucepan, heat the chicken broth. Stir in all the remaining ingredients except the parsley. Cover and cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are tender but not mushy, and most of the broth has been absorbed (it's OK if they're a little liquidy).

STEP THREE:

Add a little salt to taste to the cooked beef and carrots. Serve a chunk of the beef with some carrots, onions, and cooking broth, over the lentils, and garnish with parsley. Enjoy!

I simply cannot describe how delicious my whole apartment smelled when I came home. The ras el hanout has a smoky sweetness that's reminiscent of cumin (it may in fact contain cumin, but I'm not sure), but the taste is more peppery and earthy. The carrots got perfectly tender without overcooking, the broth was...brothy...and the lentils were the perfect sidekick. It was hearty without being overly heavy, and with a glass of Beaujolais, it was divine (you know, for a Monday).



And let's see how I did on the PARTY OF ONE PRICE INDEX:

BEEF: 74 cents
CARROT: 50 cents
ONION: 25 cents
CHICKEN BROTH: 20 cents
LENTILS: 50 cents
RAS EL HANOUT: 50 cents

This made two perfectly sized servings, which makes the GRAND TOTAL...

$1.35

Nice! Fearless and frugal.

Thanks for reading! More soon...

And This Little Piggy Drank and Drank, All The Way Home

Since Obama won the election, there hasn't been much of interest in the way of news. Until now....

I got a new Crockpot! (Anderson Cooper should be pulling up to my doorstep any minute now...)

I had been using my mom's old orange Crockpot from the 70's, and it finally just gave out on me, so it went the way of wilted Christmas trees - out into the back alley dumpster. Goodbye, little Crockpot! You served me well!


I got a new one for only $21 at Best Buy (who knew they sold appliances?). I love it! It's a deep brick red, and the inside ceramic bowl is removable, so you don't have to risk electric shock every time you wash it.

My first meal with it was a lean pork loin cooked in about a half bottle of white wine. I threw in some sweet potatoes, carrots, and onions, and served it with broccoli and sourdough bread (to soak up all the wine and porkiness).

I'm really glad I went with the Crockpot as the pork cooking method, because it was a very lean cut of meat, and it would've been very tough if I hadn't cooked it for hours. I actually wish I had cooked it on low for 7-8 hours as opposed to on high for about 4. Nonetheless, it was tender and flavorful. It wasn't a fearless meal, per se, but I snapped a photo of it because I thought it was yummy enough to share.

INGREDIENTS

1 two-pound lean pork roast, visible fat removed
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into large chunks
2 large carrots, peeled and chunked
1/2 large white onion, sliced
1/3 bottle of dry white wine
salt, pepper, ground cayenne pepper, and all-purpose seasoning
drizzle of olive oil
2 T. dijon mustard

1 c. cooking liquid from Crockpot
2 T. fruit preserves
1 T. butter
1 T. balsamic vinegar

1 head broccoli
2 slices white American cheese
1/2 c. milk
salt and pepper

sourdough bread
butter

STEP ONE.

Place the first set of ingredients into the Crockpot (through mustard). Set on low and cook for 7-8 hours, or cook on high for 4 hours.

STEP TWO.

When the pork is tender, remove from liquid and slice into thick pieces. Take 1 c. of the cooking liquid, preserves, butter, and vinegar, and cook over medium-high heat until reduced by half to make a sauce.

STEP THREE.

Cook broccoli in boiling water for 4-5 minutes. Drain. In the same pot, heat milk, cheese, and salt and pepper until smooth. Toss broccoli in cheese sauce. Serve with the pork, veggies, and bread & butter.

I admit, it might've been gilding the lily to do the cheese sauce with the broccoli, but I was craving broccoli and cheese. And - I'l just come out and admit it - I love American cheese. It's the lowliest of the cheeses, especially among the foodie set, but I defy you to find me a cheese that melts as well. I even used it the next day to make a leftover pork-and-cheese sandwich.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy!

What A Crock

It was all I could do not to title this one "Nice Heiny." Why, you ask? Because I cooked pork in Heineken. Read on...

This week, my dear friend Kent came over - with a bottle of Smoking Loon Merlot in tow - before he went to the Improv Olympics show. I call the dish I made:

HERB-ROASTED PORK WITH ROASTED RED PEPPER PESTO OVER RIGATONI.



FEARLESS FACTOR: I'd say medium-fearless. As faithful readers know, this is my second blog meal using my trusty orange CrockPot, so I was confident that the meat would be good. Even the Heineken wasn't too crazy - I've boiled many a bratwurst in beer before grilling it, always with great results. The pesto was the biggest leap of faith - I had never made any kind of pesto, let alone my own red-pepper-sun-dried-tomato version. And, since I royally destroyed last post's asparagus, I made it again this time with much better results. No mushy veggies!

INGREDIENTS:

One 5-lb. pork shoulder roast (about $1 per pound - very economical)
1 medium onion
5 garlic cloves
1 T. dried oregano
1 T. dried basil
2 bottles Heineken or other lager
2 jars roasted red peppers
1 large jar julienned sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, undrained
2 (1/2 c.) bags pine nuts
1 c. pork broth from CrockPot
1 large bunch basil
1 bunch flat-leaf parsley
1 lb. rigatoni pasta
2 bunches fresh asparagus
2 small or 1 large zucchini
olive oil
salt and pepper

STEP ONE:

Dinner was at 7 PM, so at about 11 AM, I put the pork (5 lb. of pork shoulder) in the Crockpot. It needs about 8 hours on LO or 4 hours on HI. Pour the beer around the pork - it should come to the top but not completely cover it. Slice an onion and mince about 4-5 cloves of garlic. Add the onion, garlic, and dried oregano and dried basil, as well as some pepper (no salt yet). Cover and cook on LO for about 7-8 hours.







STEP TWO:

In a blender (doing one half at a time, the repeating for the second half of the ingredients so as not to overload the blender), add the roasted red peppers, the sun-dried tomatoes with all the oil, the pine nuts, fresh basil, parsley, and about 1 c. of the pork roasting broth from the Crockpot. Blend on high until the ingredients start to break down. Open the blender and stir around the ingredients, scraping the bottom of the blender. Add a little salt and pepper. Continue to blend until the mixture is mostly smooth, with some small pieces of pine nuts still visible. Transfer to a container until you're ready to warm it.













STEP THREE:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Trim the tough ends off the asparagus. Trim the ends off the zucchini and cut into pieces lengthwise. Place in a baking dish and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and drizzle with a little olive oil, tossing to coat. Bake for about 10 minutes.





STEP FOUR:

Remove the pork from the broth and allow to cool enough to touch. Remove the meat from the bones, discarding any excess fat (there will be a lot of fat to remove - pork shoulder is a tough, fatty cut of meat, which is why it needs to be slow-roasted for hours). My 5-lb. roast yielded about 2 1/2 cups of torn meat). Tear into small pieces. Keep warm.




This is how much meat a 5-lb. roast yielded:


STEP FIVE:

Boil salted water and cook pasta according to package directions.



STEP SIX:

In a large skillet, combine the pesto and the pork, and heat on low until hot. Don't let it bubble heavily - you don't want it to evaporate/ reduce.





STEP SEVEN:

Spoon the pesto and pork over the rigatoni and serve the asparagus and zucchini on the side. Top with a little grated parmesan cheese if you want.



THE JUDGES' VERDICTS:

KENT: I don't think I've ever had pork with pasta before. It's interesting. It's really good. The vegetables are perfect, I love asparagus.

JESS: This is really good. I'm really impressed with the sauce. The only bad thing is it got a little cold before we got to eat it. But the meat was perfect. The zucchini could've used a little more seasoning, but the asparagus was awesome.

ROSS: This is awesome. Maybe top 5 you've ever cooked. Top 10, maybe. Well, maybe Top 15. You cook a lot of stuff.



MY VOTE ON MY DISH: Hmmm...I'd say 8.5 stars. Aside from the bad timing on my part (the pasta sat a little while and got a bit sticky, and nothing was piping hot), everything came out great. The pork was tender and flavorful, and the pesto was great. It somehow tasted creamy without containing any cream. And the veggies were crisp and yummy.

NOTES: Next time, I would just wait longer to cook the pasta, so it didn't get sticky and too soft, and I would heat the sauce for a little longer so it stayed nice and hot. This isn't a dish I'd cook a lot, not only because the CrockPot is time-consuming, but because pork shoulder is a fatty cut of meat. Even though I trimmed off most of the fat, there is fat that's just integral to the meat that can't really be extracted from the meat. In small portions, it's not too terrible, but as I rule I try to keep pork to a minimum (and red meat, too, for that matter). If I made this dish again, I would substitute whole wheat pasta, and I would make it vegetarian - I might incorporate the zucchini and asparagus into the sauce in lieu of meat.

We had a great night. Rather than watch Desperate Housewives and veg, we desperately ate some veggies in our house. The wine was great, too. I usually don't like Merlot, but the Smoking Loon was really good.

Thanks for reading, guys!

Eats, Leaves, and Shoots: The Jess Hanebury Story

The inspiration for this week's blog was my dear roommate Jess' long-awaited return from the Land of Los Angeles, where she was shooting her very first TV commercials! Yay, Jess! And she's only home till the end of this week, and then she's back out on the road to shoot even more commercials! She's kind of a big deal.



Since it was a lazy Columbus Day, I thought I'd do some slow-cooked meat. I had been wanting to use my vintage crockpot (doesn't it sound so much more glam when you call it "vintage" rather than "old hand-me-down from the '70s"?), so I got a lovely roast (a bargain meat at just $2 per person - a $6 roast total) and jumped in.



I had also been dying to try cooking polenta, an Italian side dish of sorts - it's kind of like the grits we eat down South. It's just cornmeal , but it's now a staple in 4-star Italian restaurants, while it probably originated as a sort of "porridge" - a way to feed a lot of mouths for very little moolah.

I couldn't find the make-from-scratch polenta at the store, so I got some pre-made, the kind in the tube. It's already fully cooked, and it's packaged like cookie dough. You just cut off the plastic and heat it up however you like. I chose to pan-fry it in a little olive oil. It was already seasoned with a blend of Italian spices, so it was a cinch to make (and at less than $2.50, also a bargain). It's by a brand called Melissa's, which specializes in fresh, organic fare.

I call this dish: Jess' Juicy Italian Beef with Fried Polenta, Caramelized Mushrooms, Asparagus Spears, and Buttery Jus. Rolls off the tongue, eh?



INGREDIENTS:

FOR ROAST:

1 beef roast
2 cans beef broth
1 cup red wine
1 medium yellow onion
1/2 bunch parsley
4 cloves garlic

FOR ASPARAGUS

1 bunch asparagus
drizzle olive oil
salt and pepper

FOR POLENTA

1 tube pre-made polenta
a little olive oil

FOR SAUCE/ MUSHROOM TOPPING:

a few ladles full of the beef jus from Crockpot
1-2 T. of butter (depending on how bad you want to be)
2 T. olive oil
salt and pepper


STEP 1:

About 4-5 hours before you want to eat, turn the crockpot on high. (My crockpot, as I said, is vintage, and only has 2 settings: HI and LO. Since I had about 4 hours instead of 8, I went for HI. More up-to-date models may have different settings.) Pour the two cans of beef broth and the cup of wine into the pot. Place the beef in the broth/ wine mixture. Slice the onion and put those in. Peel and lightly crush the garlic (just lay your knife on it, flat-side down, and bear down on it with the hel of your hand. It will stay intact, but will release more flavor than if it were just peeled). Throw in some parsley. You could also use any fresh herbs you like - sage would be nice, as would cilantro if you wanted some Mexican flair. Cover it and don't touch it or take the lid off for 4-5 hours. Seriously, go do something else. See a movie or something.














STEP 2:

Put a few ladlefuls of the beef/wine jus in a medium saucepan and crank up the heat till it boils. Just let it boil and reduce till everything else is done cooking, adding more jus if too much boils away. (I started with about 1 cup of liquid and ended up with about 1/2 cup.)




STEP 3:

About 30 minutes before you're ready to eat, slice about half of a 1-lb. container of button mushrooms. Heat olive oil in a skillet over high, and cook them - without moving them around in the pan for the first few minutes, and not very often in general - for about 7-8 minutes, until they're nicely caramelized (this means brown, and slightly sweet). When they're done, set them aside.








STEP 4:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Trim the ends off the asparagus spears. Place them in a shallow baking dish and drizzle a little olive oil over the top. Sprinkle some salt and pepper over it, then toss it around in the dish so all the seasoning and oil is evenly distributed. Bake for 8-10 minutes.






STEP 5:

In a medium skillet, heat a little more olive oil (not too much - about 1 tablespoon) over medium heat. Slice the polenta into 3/4-inch slices, and fry them 2-3 minutes on each side.








STEP 6:

Turn off the heat on the sauce and stir in a pat of butter. Cut pieces of the roast and place on a plate. Arrange the polenta and the asparagus around the beef, and top it with some mushrooms and jus-butter sauce. Eat!




My judges for today were, of course, Jess, since dinner was in her honor, and - you know it - Ross. Here's what they had to say:

JESS: It was awesome. Delicious. And hearty. The beef and the mushrooms were my favorite. If anyone could decide what to make for dinner every morning, you could make meals like this every day. I liked the polenta, but only when it soaked up the jus. Alone, it was just OK. And I like my asparagus mushier.

ROSS: The meat is so tender. This one of your best successes. But, asparagus is always better with a little parmesan grated on it.

Thanks, guys!

MY VOTE ON MY DISH:

Guys, I gotta give this one 9 stars. It was really good. I rarely eat red meat, but when I do, I love every beefy bite. The meat was in fact very tender. And I couldn't believe how much flavor it had, even without salt and pepper! I agree with Jess about the polenta. I tasted it alone, and it was on the bland side - I would've salted it, but when it soaked up the juices, it was perfect. The mushrooms really added something, too - I was afraid they'd be sort of superfluous, but I think they really rounded out the flavors. And, this was one of the easiest, quickest (not counting the 4 hours I wasn't in the kitchen while the roast cooked), and most economical meals I've done on the blog.

NOTES: Next time, I might plate it differently. I would put the polenta on the bottom and place the beef and the jus directly on top of the polenta, so it immediately soaks up all the flavor. It's really great to know that you can have the main part of your meal done just with a little planning - just plop the meat in the crockpot before you go to work, set it on LO, and come home to a delicious-smelling house and an almost-complete hot meal.



BONUS: Here's a quick cool-weather meal idea. Before work one day, put a small whole roasting chicken into the crockpot with some chicken broth (2-3 cans maybe), and some white wine if you have some around. Set it on LO and go about your day. When you come home, cook some 5-minute Stove Top stuffing or Minute Rice and steam some frozen veggies in the microwave - green beans or broccoli maybe. Voila! A ten-minute dinner that rivals Mom's.

We ate beef. We watched Heroes. It was sort of magical.



Thanks for reading, guys! See you next time.
Bon voyage, Jess (again)!