Cider Braised Roast Beef in the Crock Pot (4 Star)

Most Sundays growing up my mom made roast beef with potatoes, carrots, and gravy for dinner. It was always one of my favorite dinners. I've struggled to learn to make my own because it often turned out dry and tough--the dual curse of inept roast cooking. I've finally figured out how to make a fall-apart tender, juicy, savory roast beef and the crock pot is the key. My mom used to always use the oven but that method has only caused me ruin and despair. If you, too, have struggled in your roast-cooking efforts, try this recipe.





Cider Braised Roast Beef

1-2 large onions, peeled and sliced
4-5 lb beef roast (cheap cuts work great in this recipe)
salt and pepper
4-5 carrots, peeled and cut into halves or thirds
6-8 potatoes, peeled and cut into halves
3-4 (or more) cups beef broth
1 cup apple juice concentrate
1 bay leaf
4 cloves garlic, chopped, smashed, pressed--whatever you prefer

This recipe is the kind that is very tweak-able. Use more or less of anything to suit your tastes.

Place the onion in the bottom of a large crock pot. Heavily salt and pepper the roast, rubbing it into the meat. Place the roast on top of the onion. Put the carrots and potatoes around the roast. In a large measuring cup combine the beef broth, apple juice concentrate, and garlic. Pour around the roast. The liquid should cover the roast at least half-way. Add more beef broth, if necessary. Add the bay leaf.

Put the cover on the crock pot and either cook on low for around ten hours, or high for 6-8. Crock pots can vary in temperature quite a bit so it could take more or less time. I like to start mine on high for a couple of hours and then turn it to low for the rest. The roast is done when it falls apart when pulled with a fork and the vegetables are tender.

Gravy

2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup water
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1 teaspoon beef base (or to taste)

Remove all meat and vegetables from the pot and place on a platter or serving dishes. Cover while you make the gravy. You can either skim the fat from the top or make the roast a day ahead and then remove the hardened fat and reheat the roast in the crock pot for several hours. Pour all the liquid into a sauce pan and turn heat to high or medium-high. In a small bowl combine 2/3 cup flour and 2/3 cup water. Whisk until smooth and pour into the liquid as soon as it is boiling. Boil and whisk until thickened. Add 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon beef base to season, or to taste.

I like cooking the potatoes with the roast because they absorb the juices and become very flavorful, but sometimes I don't put them in and make mashed potatoes separately instead. Either way, it's very good!

Enjoy!

Pork or Chicken Tacos with Cilantro Slaw (3 Star)

This taco meat is cooked in the crock pot to tender, juicy, and savory perfection. Either chicken or pork works well here. The top picture is pork and the bottom is chicken (made on separate occasions).



Shredded Pork or Chicken Taco Meat

1 onion, chopped
2 teaspoons sea salt
2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (or regular if you don't have smoked)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
1/3 cup brown sugar
4 lbs boneless, skinless chicken or pork
1 cup chicken or beef broth
2/3 cup frozen apple juice concentrate
2/3 cup water
1 cup Salsa Verde (tomatillo salsa)

Garnish

sour cream
cheese
Salsa Verde

Put the chopped onion in the bottom of a crock pot.

In a small bowl combine all of the seasonings and sugar. Rub this mixture onto the meat and place in the crock pot. Pour the broth, juice, and water into the crock pot. Cook on LOW for six to eight hours or until meat is so tender that it just falls apart when shredded.

Remove the meat from the pot and shred with two forks. Place shredded meat into a bowl or serving dish. Add some spoonfuls of broth back into the meat so that it is moist but not soggy. (The remaining broth can be reserved in the fridge or freezer for use in a soup later.) Stir 1 cup of salsa into the meat and serve with garnish(es) of choice. This meat is actually better the second day, so make it a day ahead or make enough so that you have left-overs.



I like to serve this with homemade tortillas (click here) and cilantro lime slaw (click here). The spice blend in this recipe is inspired by a recipe from Prudence Pennywise (click here).

Crock Pots, Twizzlers, and Conductivity

Did you know that if you have a gallon-size Ziploc bag full of red Twizzlers sitting in between the base of your crock pot and the ceramic pot, it will still cook a pot of beans?

It will.



But the Twizzlers won't be very edible afterward. They'll be downright crunchy. But they won't melt, they will retain their shape and just get crisp and brown.



And you may have Ziploc plastic stuck to the inside of your crock pot base and it won't be easy to get off.



And it may take your beans longer than normal to cook. But if you're busy like me, and don't even get around to checking on the beans until they've been cooking for ten hours, then you won't even notice anything unusual until you try to take out the ceramic pot to wash it and for some reason, it's stuck. And then you get your strong hubby to pull on the pot while you hold the base, wondering what is going on because you didn't see anything spill in between. And then you see, with utter amazement, that there is a bag of Twizzlers gluing the appliance and pot together, and you put two and two together--oh, the Twizzlers were on the shelf above the crock pot and the last time you used the crock pot the base was put away on the shelf while the pot was in the dishwasher and one of the kids made chocolate chip cookies and the chocolate chips were under the Twizzlers and when you got down the chocolate chips you didn't notice that the Twizzlers fell into the crock pot and when you put the pot away, you didn't notice that there was something else underneath it, and you still didn't notice that morning when you threw in the beans and water and plugged it in, and yes, something had smelled a little sweeter than usual when they were cooking, come to think of it, but how did you not smell melted burning plastic, and WOW, you can't believe they still cooked!

Too bad you forgot to take a picture of the bag of crispy Twizzlers so everyone else could know what slow-cooked Twizzlers look like. And you might want to be a little more aware of things, ya know? The boogeyman could come boogeying into your kitchen and you wouldn't even notice.

Beef Dip Sandwiches (3 Star)

This recipe is from Pioneer Woman (she has two recipes on this page and I used the second one) and it was so good. However, (and no offense to Pioneer Woman or anyone else who calls it "Drip Beef") I just can't call it "Drip Beef". It sounds strange and unappetizing to me. But "Beef Dip Sandwiches" sound good--pretty much the same thing as "French Dip Sandwiches" which is what these are, as far as I can tell. But whatever you call them, they are tasty!

This is one of those recipes that is so easy but so good that it's hard to believe you didn't slave for hours over it. I cooked my beef in the crock pot on low for about 10 hours and it was melt-in-your-mouth tender, juicy, and beautifully beefy.

It might also have been extra good because we bought some high quality beef recently. I typically buy meat based on whatever is on sale but a few weeks ago we bought 1/8 of a cow from a local rancher who said he doesn't use hormones, antibiotics, and only grass feeds. His price seemed pretty fair to me so we decided to try it out, and this was some of the best beef I've ever cooked. Most of our little family enjoyed it, too.

Beautiful Black Bean Soup (3 Star)

I changed the name of this soup to "beautiful" because it had beautiful flavor (and because I like alliteration). I LOVED this soup! Although the appearance was not beautiful at first. In fact in Brandon's words it was "scary". I have never made black bean soup before and so we are not used to such a dark soup. (Really, this might be a great thing to serve at a Halloween party! It could be called "Tar".)

I got this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and she raves about the Toasted Cumin Seed Crema which I thought was good. However, I don't know if mine was as good as hers because, as usual, I forgot to get something at the store and it was the cumin seed. I had cumin powder, though, and I thought that maybe I could just toast the powder which is what I did. It appeared to work but flavor-wise I imagine the seeds would be superior.

This soup was so good, especially after it had been in the fridge for a couple of days. It was incredibly easy, too. The recipe says to put the beans in the crock pot and cook--no soaking. I have never cooked beans without soaking and even though I have seen other recipes instruct this, I have never believed it. But this time I decided to let go of my limiting beliefs and it worked! Within four hours of cooking on high in the crock pot, the beans were soft.

One part of the recipe says to do this: "Transfer two cups bean mixture to blender; puree until smooth. Return puree to remaining soup in slow cooker." Being averse to this kind of hassle, I used an immersion blender and blended until there was a creamy base but still plenty of whole beans.

Isn't it beautiful?





The boys were a bit wary of this soup (I think we all were!), but three of them ate small portions and were okay with it. I think next time I make this they may warm up to it a bit more.

My Current Favorite Chili (3 Star)

This is a hearty, thick, rich chili with some kick but not enough kick to make Brandon and I even close to uncomfortable. It was a tad too spicy for our little guy (even though I had already toned it down from the recipe), but he still ate it with lots of chips and water and exclamations of "Hot! Hot!" Three out of the four boys liked this. The recipe I used is here, from Allrecipes, called Boilermaker Tailgate Chili.

As usual, I made some alterations (for personal taste and also because of what we had on hand) and here they are:

Instead of the recommended meat I used:
1 pound of homemade sausage and
1 13 oz can of beef, undrained (the beef broth taking the place of the beer)

Omitted the beer.

Instead of the chili beans:
2 cans drained pinto beans
1 can drained black beans
1 can drained white beans

Instead of the canned tomatoes:
28 oz pureed frozen tomatoes (from our garden)

Decreased cayenne pepper to 1/4 tsp.

Increased sugar to 1-2 Tbsp and used brown sugar.

Added 1 Tbsp cocoa powder.

Added 1+ cup of homemade salsa that I happened to have in the fridge.

The first time I made this I cooked it in the crock pot on low for about six hours and it was great. The second time I cooked it on the stove because I didn't plan so well, and it turned out great, too, but it was better in the crock pot.