crock pot pot roast.

It's officially fall and that's the beginning of my cooking season! By now you must have realized I have a slight obsession with my crock pot. Tonight I made a pot roast, complete with all the veggies and homemade gravy. I prepped it all the night before and put it in the fridge overnight; this morning I set it to low and left it for the day.  I was a little nervous about it, but it was actually really good and basically effortless. One great thing about this meal is that it has a lot of root vegetables which are coming in to season.

Pot Roast (serves 4-5)
3-3 1/2 lb lean roast, trimmed (I used top round roast)
1/3 cup flour plus 3 tbsp flour, divided
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tsp olive oil
4 carrots
3 potatoes
3 small turnip
2 small yellow onions
2-3 celery stalks
1/2 cup mushroom gravy
1/4 cup water

You may want to prep everything the night before as this is a 10 hour cooking process.  First start by giving all of the veggies a coarse chop. Peel the carrots and cut them into thirds, peel the potatoes, onions, and turnips and quarter them, slice the celery into thirds and add them to the crock pot.

In a skillet, heat the oil. Add 1/3 cup flour, salt and pepper to a plate. Pat the meat dry and roll in the flour to cover it, shake off the excess. Add it to the skillet just to brown it. This will help seal in the flavors of the beef.

1) flour it

2) brown it

Once browned, add it to the crock pot on top of the veggies. Add the 1/4 cup water to the empty skillet to transfer the drippings and excess flour to the crock pot.

Top the beef with 1/2 cup mushroom gravy. This will prevent it from drying out over the long cooking process. If you are prepping the night before, this is the stopping point. You can place the lid on the crock pot and stick it in the fridge until you're ready. When you're ready, turn the crock pot on low heat and cook for 10 hours.  Set the crock pot to high for the last hour to ensure that all the veggies cook through.

When it's ready, you can remove the meat and veggies from the pot. You can make gravy with the drippings and juice from the vegetables.  Transfer the liquid into a small pot and set on medium heat. There was barely any visible fat in the juice because the cut of meat was very lean. If you do see a lot of fat in the juices, you can ladle it out before you start your gravy to keep it healthy. While stirring constantly with a whisk, add flour 1 tbsp at a time.  It will thicken up into a brown gravy-- I thought this was a necessary addition as the meat was a little on the dry side by itself. I was pleasantly surprised by how this one turned out. I hope you enjoy it too!

mussels with white wine and garlic

This was my first go-around at making mussels at home and it was super easy. Unfortunately I didn't remember to document the cooking progress until the tail end so there are only a couple shots of the finished product:

This is one of those dinners that looks fancy and labor intensive but is actually really simple.  Mussels are a very inexpensive protein source-- they're affectionately referred to as the 'poor man's oyster'.  These cheap mollusks are an excellent source of iron and protein. Although they are not high in dietary fat, they do have natural cholesterol (48mg/3oz serving) so be careful as not to over indulge if you have a history of high cholesterol.

Mussels with white wine and garlic (serves 3-4)
2-3 lb fresh mussels, rinsed (1 bag at my local seafood grocer)
approximately 1 cup water
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
3-4 cloves garlic
1/2-1 cup dry white wine (I used Chardonnay)
1 tsp dry parsley or 1 tbsp fresh parsley
1 1/2 Roma tomatoes, diced
lemon juice squeezed from half of one lemon
salt and pepper to taste
optional-- shallots, basil, crushed red pepper (be creative!)

Prepping this dish is really simple. I served them atop of whole grain angel hair spaghetti but they would also make a great appetizer with crusty bread.  I started by boiling water for the pasta.  When the pasta was dropped in the water, I began cooking the mussels.
To start, heat the butter and olive oil in a large pan--I used a wok. Next add the lemon juice, garlic, and parsley.  I ran the garlic cloves through my garlic press but finely mincing with a knife would work too. Maybe it's my Italian blood, but I am desensitized to garlic so I use it in large quantities. If this isn't your preference, cut back to 1-2 cloves.
Once that's heating, add the water and wine on high heat, let it heat up for a minute or two then add the mussels. When cooking with wine, this is my rule of thumb: If it's good enough to drink, it's good enough to cook with. If you wouldn't want to sip it, leave it out of your cooking too.
When their shells start to open, add the diced tomatoes. The mussels are fully cooked when they open up-- if left on the heat for too long, they will get tough and chewy.  If the mussel does not open in the cooking process, do not open them yourself and eat them-- it means they aren't good.
That's all there is to it, from start to finish it's only about a 10 minute process and a million times better than any instant meal or drive through option!