World’s Easiest Pot Roast & Other Main Dish Favorites

I’ve got a seven-bone roast in the oven, cooking with some mushrooms and carrots; the vote was for mashed potatoes to go with, not roasted. I also have a cast-ion dutch oven of mushroom gravy simmering on top of the stove. The thought crossed my mind this afternoon that pot roasts would be a good topic for my blog.  Everyone wants to make a good pot roast; a lot of people just don’t know how. And it couldn’t be easier. There really isn’t a recipe per se – I pull out two long sheets of the heavy duty aluminum foil and then lay a pot roast on top of it. Then I dump on some dry onion soup mix and maybe some dry mushroom gravy powder. Add some garlic, if I have it. Add some cleaned carrots and if I have them on hand, sliced fresh mushrooms. Then you just wrap it up tight and put it on a foil-lined cookie sheet and let it start roasting in a slow oven, the longer the better. This has always been one of those fall-back on recipes when I know I am going to be busy all day but need to think ahead about dinner. Midway you can add some potatoes – if you add them too soon they will be mush.

What I have been doing today was slicing and cooking down a big container of mushrooms from Sam’s Club–then I mixed two packages of mushroom gravy mix with two cups of water and a dollop of Kitchen Bouquet (my favorite flavor enhancer) and let it cook a while. When the mushrooms roasting in the pot were done I added those to the gravy too. It’s not rocket science – you can make a roast like this with almost any cut of meat – the trick is to let it cook long and slow. You can also make it with a package of onion soup mix and a can of mushroom soup–and nothing else.  Whatever embellishments you add are up to you.  Another thing I like to do is pour the potato water into the gravy and then thicken it some more. I hate to pour out potato water – it’s full of vitamins and minerals…and it helps thicken the gravy, too.  Anyway, that’s how I make a pot roast that is always delicious. And clean-up couldn’t be easier – wad up the aluminum foil and toss it into the trash. Voila!  And IF you have any leftovers, you can make the world’s best beef stew the next day – just cut up the left over meat, add the left over gravy (if you have any–if not add some water) – cut up the leftover carrots, if there are any – and dump in a couple of boxes of frozen mixed vegetables. Let it all cook together so that everybody gets well acquainted and you have a wonderful beef stew. One of my daughters in law makes the pot roast when I visit them, just so I will make up a stew for her the next day.

Well, I don’t want to limit you to just an idea or two of mine so here are a few other pot roast recipes to contemplate:

Shoney’s Slow-Cooked Pot Roast

You will need:

2 tablespoons butter

3 lbs rump roast, trimmed

2 celery ribs, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 teaspoon dried parsley

1/2 tablespoon dried thyme

2 cups beef broth

20 whole peppercorns

1 whole bay leaf

1/2 tablespoon salt

2 carrots, sliced

2 potatoes, peeled and cubed

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup flour

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

2. Melt butter in Dutch oven; add roast and brown on all sides;

remove to platter. Add celery, onion, garlic, parsley and thyme to

Dutch oven; sauté 5 minutes; return roast to Dutch oven.

3. Add broth, peppercorns, bay leaf and salt; cover; place in

preheated oven. Cook roast 4 hours; baste every 30 minutes.

4. When done, remove roast and strain stock into bowl; discard

vegetables. Using two forks, shred meat into bite-sized pieces and

return to Dutch oven. Pour strained broth over shredded beef; add

carrots, potatoes and salt. Return to oven and cook for 45

additional minutes.

5. Drain and measure stock from Dutch oven. Add enough beef broth

to measure 3 cups and place in saucepan. Whisk in flour; simmer

until thick. Pour over meat and vegetables.

Serves 6

Easiest Ever Crock Pot Beef Stew

You will need:

1 package (24 ounces) frozen mixed vegetables

1 pound lean stewing beef, cut into small cubes

1 can condensed tomato soup (undiluted)

½ cup water

2 tablespoons dried onion flakes

salt & pepper to taste

1 bay leaf

Dash of Kitchen Bouquet

Put the vegetables in the bottom of the crockpot. Add meat. In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients and pour over the meat and vegetables. Cover and cook on low setting 12-14 hours (on high, 3-4 hours). Makes 4 servings.

This is a good recipe to toss into the crockpot before you go to work in the morning. Or if you are a mother chasing after young children all day, a good recipe to get things moving before the household turns into a circus (been there, done that).

Easiest Slow Cooker Beef Stew

You will need:

1 package (24 ounces) frozen mixed vegetables

1 pound lean stewing beef, cut into small cubes

1 can condensed tomato soup (undiluted)

½ cup water

2 tablespoons dried onion flakes

Salt & pepper to taste

Put the vegetables in the bottom of the slow cooker. Add meat. In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients and pour over the meat and vegetables. Cover and cook on low setting 12-14 hours (on high, 3-4 hours). Makes 4 servings.

This is a good recipe to toss into the slow cooker before you go to work in the morning.

Savory Slow Cooker Beef Stew

You will need:

1 (24 oz) package frozen mixed vegetables

1 lb lean stewing beef, cut into small cubes

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

1 pkg onion soup mix

½ cup water

Put the frozen vegetables into the slow cooker. Add meat.  Mix together condensed cream of mushroom soup with ½ cup water; pour over vegetables and meat. Sprinkle on onion soup mix, stir to mix; cover and cook on low setting 8-10 hours or on high 3-4 hours.

5-ingredient Slow Cooker Brisket

You will need:

3-4 lb beef brisket

1 large onion, sliced

1 TBSP liquid smoke

1 12-oz bottle chili sauce

salt and pepper to taste

Arrange onion slices in bottom of slow cooker. Place brisket over onions. Sprinkle on liquid smoke. Pour chili sauce over meat. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cover and cook on low setting 10-12 hours.

(You can add peeled potatoes and carrots in the last 2 hours for a complete meal. Add a little water if necessary).

5-ingredient BBQ Brisket

You will need:

4-5 lb beef brisket

1 ½ cups your favorite commercial BBQ sauce

1.5 oz bottle liquid smoke

Seasonings: sprinkling of celery salt, garlic salt, onion salt

Place brisket is slow cooker. Sprinkle with seasonings. Pour on liquid smoke. Cover and refrigerate 8 hours. Next day, cook on low setting 8-10 hours or until tender. During the last hour, pour BBQ sauce over the brisket. Excellent served on buns with cole slaw on the side.

And here is my absolutely favorite meat loaf recipe, clipped from an L.A. Times newspaper years ago – but it was passed on to me by my email friend Pat, who I met on the food & wine boards on PRODIGY (if anyone remembers that).

JERRY’S FAMOUS DELI MEAT LOAF

You will need:

2 TBSP BUTTER

1 LARGE ONION, CHOPPED

2 EGGS

2 ½ LBS GROUND BEEF

1 LARGE GREEN BELL PEPPER, CHOPPED (or substitute celery)

½ CUP MATZO MEAL

2 CARROTS, PEELED AND MINCED

1 ½ TSP PEPPER

1 ½ TSP GARLIC POWDER

1 ½ TBSP COARSE SALT

¼ C. CATSUP

MELT the butter over low heat and cook onion until carmelized, about 20-25 minutes.   Combine onion with eggs, beef, bell pepper, matzo meal, carrots, bell pepper, garlic powder & salt in a large bowl. Mix well. Pat mixture into loaf on baking sheet or pack into 2 loaf pans.  Spread or brush catsup on top.  Bake at 375 50 minutes to an hour. Serve plain or with brown mushroom gravy, if desired.

(Sandy’s cooknote: I made this last week and it fits nicely into 2 standard loaf pans. You could freeze one & it wouldn’t take up too much space. This is the BEST meatloaf I have ever discovered. Makes great sandwiches with the leftovers, too.)

Brown Mushroom gravy:

You will need:

3 tbsp oil

1 lb mushrooms, sliced

¼ minced shallots or green onion

1 clove garlic minced

1 ½ tbsp flour

1 cup chicken broth

½ c. dry white wine

1 Tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp chopped parsley

½ tsp thyme

¼ tsp salt

pinch pepper.

Heat 2 tbsp oil in skillet over medium heat, add mushrooms and cook 5 minutes until soft. Remove mushrooms from skillet; heat remaining 1 tbsp oil, add shallots and garlic & cook 4 minutes until soft. Stir in flour. Gradually add broth & wine. Cook and stir until thickened, about 5 minutes. Add tomato paste, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper & mushrooms. Heat thoroughly. Serve with meat loaf.

(Sandy’s cooknote: I have never made this gravy recipe. If I want a brown mushroom gravy to go with the meatloaf, I just make up my own—we usually eat the meat loaf “as is”.  My friend Pat came up with the idea of spreading on some chili sauce instead of catsup & we really like that. There is a brand of chili sauce here called Homestyle that comes in a round jar; we all love it. If you WANT a mushroom gravy, make up a couple of packets of French’s brown gravy mix & stir in sliced mushrooms – much easier!)

SANDY’S PEPPER STEAK

This is one of the recipes I have been making for over 40 years. It’s really good and something you can easily throw together when unexpected company comes knocking at your door.

2 to 2 ½ lbs London broil or round steak cut in ½” slices

½ cup solid shortening Crisco

2 cans (16 oz total) tomatoes

2 ½ cups water

1 chopped onion

2 small cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

4 tsp Worcestershire sauce

6 TBSP brown roux*

4 large green bell peppers

2 cups carrot strips

1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms

Brown meat in Crisco; drain off excess.  Drain tomatoes, reserving liquid. Add reserved liquid, water, onion, salt, and pepper to meat in skillet. Cover and simmer 1 hr or until meat is tender. Uncover; add Worcestershire sauce. Stir in roux. Cook until thick and bubbly. Cut green peppers into strips and add to meat with drained tomatoes. Add partially cooked carrots (I precook them in the microwave). Simmer 5 minutes. Add mushrooms. Cook an additional minute or two. Serve over hot cooked rice or noodles.

*To make a roux, blend 1 cup solid-shortening Crisco with 1 cup flour until smooth. Stir in 2 TBSP Kitchen Bouquet. Refrigerate mix in a covered container until needed. To use the roux, use 3 TBSP roux for each cup of liquid and cook until thickened. Roux will keep indefinitely in the frig.

One more favorite is Beef Burgundy. Do you know, I have been making this dish for so many years that I couldn’t remember at first where to find a written copy of it .  But here it is:

BEEF BURGUNDY

You will need:

1-2 lbs of top sirloin or London broil

1 small onion, chopped fine

1 8-oz can of tomato sauce

1 8-oz can filled with Burgundy wine

½ lb sliced raw mushrooms (used canned ones in a pinch)

salt, pepper, pinch of oregano and marjoram

Slice meat very thin (if you partially freeze the meat, it will slice into nice thin slices).

Brown the meat in a small amount of butter or oil, along with the onion. Add tomato sauce, wine, and seasonings. Cover and simmer 1 hour. Fifteen minutes before serving, add mushrooms. Serve over hot rice or noodles and sprinkle with parsley, if you like.

(This can easily be doubled, too. And sometimes when I didn’t have any mushrooms, I tossed in very thin carrot sticks and let them cook with the other ingredients for an hour).

You may have noticed, these are all MEAT recipes. I’ll do a column one day soon on my favorite poultry recipes.

Happy Cooking!

Sandy

Anyone Can Write A Cookbook

Anyone can write a cookbook.  At least, that’s the consensus of more than one writer.

Patrick McManus, co-author of “Whatchagot Stew” had quite a bit to say about writing cookbooks.

“Back about 1969,” writes McManus (somewhat tongue-in-cheek), “I came across one of those scary statistical articles in the newspaper. It predicted that within twenty years one out of every four people in the United States would either have written a cookbook or be a carrier…”

McManus wasn’t worried about himself because he didn’t belong to the high-risk group—people who cook.  He figured it could never happen to him; the closest he’d ever come to cooking was opening a can of sardines.

In October of 1980, McManus explained, he visiting friends. While the husband bustled happily in the kitchen, wife whispered tearfully to McManus that her husband had gone from learning to boil water to writing a cookbook. She said he was at that very moment ‘cooking up’ a recipe to test on them—his Pheasant Italiano.

‘Pheasant Italiano,’ McManus replied, “Sounds delicious.”

‘Don’t ever let him hear you say that!” the wife hissed. “It will only encourage him.”

With great fanfare at dinner, the husband served his Pheasant Italiano, and, reports McManus, his taste buds instantly melted into euphoria. Never before had they known such ecstasy.

‘Like it?’ the chef asked.

‘Not bad,” McManus replied. “Could use a little salt and pepper, though.’

‘Oh yeah,’ he snarled, ‘well maybe you should write your own damn cookbook, how about that?’

It’s odd,” comments McManus, “how little offhand suggestions plant themselves in some remote but fertile recess of the brain and begin to grow undetected by the host organism until it’s too late…”

“By 1985,” McManus continues, “the dire predictions of 1969 had come to pass. One out of every four persons in the United States was now either a cookbook writer or a carrier. Their numbers were growing exponentially.  Carl Sagan wrote in PARADE magazine that unless a serum was developed soon, within a few years all the land surface on earth would be covered with cookbooks to a depth of twelve feet.

‘There will be billions and billions of them,’ Sagan wrote, ‘until the supply of known recipe reserves is totally exhausted and the writers will be reduced to stealing each other’s recipes and merely changing the names.  Cooks will prepare ‘Chicken Bombay’ only to discover that it is the same as the old Chicken Kiev’.  Chaos will reign!  Sagan named the impending catastrophe ‘The Souffle Effect.’…..”

And with this, McManus goes on to explain the origin of “Whatchagot Stew” and how he and his sister happened to write a cookbook.

“My urge to write a cookbook” says McManus “increased day by day, which was peculiar. I didn’t know how to cook. I didn’t want to learn to cook.  I had never even read a cookbook.  Why on earth did I feel this compulsion to write one?  True, there was a certain amount of peer pressure.  Most of my friends had written their own cookbooks…I asked my therapist about the compulsion. He said there was no known cure for the malady, but he’d sell me an autographed copy of his SCHIZOID MANIC-DEPRESSIVES’ COOKBOOK…” (From “Whatchagot Stew” by Patrick F. McManus and Patricia McManus Gass, published by Henry Holt and Company, 1989).

Well, if it’s any consolation to McManus, Carl Sagan’s prediction about the land surface of the earth being covered with cookbooks never came true (DARN!) and a lot of people continue to write them.

Nika Hazelton, author of many cookbooks, had something to say about them her book  “I COOK AS I PLEASE”, published in 1974 by Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers.

“Cookbooks,” says Hazelton, “are another of the subjects I muse about as I wash dishes or perform the hundred and one mindless occupations that are part of kitchen life—putting away dishes, cleaning silver, lining kitchen drawers with clean paper.  I write cookbooks myself, endeavoring to earn a living, but it still beats me why people buy so many new cookbooks when they could cook just as well from the ones they have…”
(Strange…I have never mused about cookbooks while washing dishes). Which isn’t the point, of course, and those who collect cookbooks could have told Ms. Hazelton that.  We don’t always buy cookbooks to cook from them – although that can be an added bonus. We buy them to read, and we do.  I’ve often heard people say they “read cookbooks the way other people read novels”, with astonishment, as though no one ever before or ever since would do such a strange thing.

Truth is, cookbook collectors have nightstands and the floor by the bed and every available space in their living rooms and dining rooms piled high with cookbooks clamoring to be read. Sometimes when I turn out the light and turn over in bed, stacks of books that were scattered all over the bed fall noisily to the floor while the cats and dog dash for cover. I even keep a few cookbooks in the back seat of the car…in case I need something to read while stuck in traffic.

“Who writes and buys all these books and why?” asked Hazelton. “Professional food writers and some professional cooks write cookbooks for the same reason anthropology professors publish anthropology papers, namely, because it is their job.  Cookbooks are good for keeping one’s name before the public eye, leading to reviews, radio and TV appearances….As for the nonprofessionals, some write cookbooks because they have found that some food ideas and recipes work out well or because they have a good contemporary idea.  Very often these are one-shot books, even excellent ones.  But most cookbooks,” claims Hazelton, “as far as I can see are written because it is so fashionable… Cooking is like writing; most people think they could do it better if they just had a little time….”

Nika Hazelton had much more to say on this subject; you will have to find a copy of “I COOK AS I PLEASE” to read the rest. Hazelton also noted that while she had over 2,000 cookbooks, she only cooked from about twenty of those.  That sounds about right to me.  I think I have about ten thousand cookbooks (no one wants to count them) – but I cook from perhaps a dozen or so.

As noted by Patrick McManus, you don’t even have to be a writer to write a cookbook.  Lots of celebrities write cookbooks—for charitable causes or just because they enjoy cooking. If your name is, say, Vincent Price and you write a cookbook , it’s a shoo-in that a lot of people are will buy the book whether they collect cookbooks or not. They are curious to learn what Vincent Price has to say about cooking.

Naming your cookbook is important. Something catchy helps. I have a cookbook called “Turnip Greens In the Bathtub” that I bought entirely on the strength of the title. I don’t even eat turnip greens.

Most often, the title says it all – The Casserole Cookbook, Cooking for One, Cooking for Two, Dinner for Eight, the Five Ingredient…Four Ingredient…Three Ingredient…Two Ingredient cookbooks . There are cookbooks aimed for losing weight, lowering your cholesterol, cutting out fat, salt, or sugar…there are cookbooks on Desserts or cookbooks on one particular dessert ingredient – like chocolate! I must have over a dozen chocolate cookbooks. There are a lot of comfort food cookbooks making the rounds these days.  While researching for another article, I realized there are a lot of “Bride” cookbooks out there.  (And here I always thought the Betty Crocker or JOY OF COOKING cookbooks were the Bride’s cookbooks – I know I have given enough of them to newlyweds over the past forty years). Also popular–cookbooks with “America” or “American” in the title – these fill an entire bookcase in my middle bedroom.  Cookbooks with Christmas in the title are a sure thing when the holidays draw near.  Then there are all of the Community, Church, and Junior League cookbooks – many of them with catchy titles like “America Discovers Columbus” (Junior League of Columbus Ohio), “Say Ah-h-h-h-!”  (the Woman’s Auxiliary to the San Diego Medical Society), “Some Like it South! (Junior League of Pensacola, Florida), “Feast of Eden” (Junior League of Monterey County, California), “Women Who Can Dish It Out” (the Junior League of Springfield, Missouri) and “Standing Ovations” (Junior Board of the Tri-City Symphony in Davenport Iowa).  What’s in a name? Everything! (And if you are a junior league and you publish a cookbook for Christmas – that’s a double whammy)

People would ask me “Why don’t you write a cookbook?”

Actually, it took 20 years to get the Schmidt family cookbook published. The idea was hatched in Florida in 1984 at a family reunion but took years to get family members to submit recipes.  “Grandma’s Favorite” (dedicated to our paternal grandmother) was published in 2004.

It was much easier in the early ‘70s when my children’s school PTA decided to compile a cookbook.  One of my sons brought home a flyer announcing the PTA’s intention. I immediately called the PTA lady whose name was on the flyer – and volunteered my expertise.  No, I had never put together a cookbook. But I collected cookbooks and knew how to type.  A few weeks later, a group of PTA ladies gathered at my home one January day to discuss the project.

As we sat around my dining room table discussing the “Project”, I glanced outside and saw my two babies, Chris – who was three – and Kelly, who was two – cavorting naked in the sprinklers in the back yard.

I was so mortified, and thought I’d die of embarrassment. I knew my husband was in the garage working. I leaned out the back door and chirped, “Jim! Oh Jim! Can you get the kids out of the sprinklers?”

“Get them yourself!” he shouted back at me. “I’m busy!”

So that was how I was introduced to the PTA. They’d collect the recipes and bring them to me, where I was stuck at home with two toddlers and a home job typing insurance policies.  I’d type up the recipes and a few months later, we sent a package off to a cookbook publisher. Soon, we had boxes of “RECIPE ROUNDUP” to sell for $3.00 a copy.    We didn’t check any of the recipes – other than to call the recipe donor occasionally to ask about an ingredient or the correct amount. We were such novices, but oddly enough, it has withstood the test of time – and oh, what fun we had putting that cook book together!  And for what it’s worth, I went on to write the school newsletter for five years and two of the women who worked on the cookbook project became lifelong friends.

Nika Hazelton also believes that having cookbooks, or at least reading them, is a middle-class thing, which does not concern the female population in general.  “This does not mean that women do not have recipes,” she adds. “On the contrary they have lots of recipes…Where do they come from? They are recipes from magazines, newspapers, publicity releases, friends, relatives, free recipes—irresistible to clip or rip out and keep.  The keeping is not done in lovely orderly files, card indexes, scrapbooks or what not, but the collection is dumped into a big or small drawer, a shoe box, an envelope, helter skelter….”

Hazelton says she keeps hers in a covered basket.  She thinks that when her life becomes more orderly, the recipes can be sorted and filed and “the chaos transformed into dazzling order”.

Well, I gave up keeping clippings in a kitchen drawer decades ago.  For one thing, sometimes clippings would slide down behind the drawer and get jammed  in the back, never to be found until someone took the whole drawer out and peeked inside (this usually only happened when the drawer wouldn’t  shut anymore  or one of the boys’ white rats or a kitten would climb into a kitchen drawer and disappear).  For another, I don’t have enough kitchen drawers to accommodate all the clippings.  They completely fill two of large boxes.  I am constantly attempting to catch up on the recipes – to clip them neatly and paste them onto either 3×5 or 4×6” cards.

But I would say to Nika Hazelton or Patrick McManus, to paraphrase the Duchess of Windsor you can’t be too rich or too thin or have too many recipes and/or cookbooks.

Which reminds me, even the Duchess of Windsor wrote a cookbook!  (Not to be confused with the current Duchess of Windsor who, I believe, has also written a cookbook)

When Edward VIII abdicated the throne in the 1930s, to be with the woman he loved, the Windsors went off to the South of France or the Bahamas, where the Duchess, nee Wallace Simpson, penned “Some Favorite Southern Recipes of the Duchess of Windsor”.

Although I find it difficult to believe that the Duchess, who was partial to the finer things in life and liked to have the Duke paint her toenails, ever wielded a spatula, she claimed to have had her own collection of cookbooks which contained many southern recipes.  Presumably, the royalties from her cookbook paid for some bottles of nail polish for her tootsies. Those Windsors lived the rest of their lives in exile.  Many historians speculate that Wallace Simpson never really forgave the former King Edward VIII for abdicating the throne–Wallace had her eye on the crown! And it would appear that, if Wallace Simpson couldn’t be royalty, she could at least collect royalties…from her cookbook, at least!

Which just goes to show you, – anybody can write a cookbook!

Happy Cooking!

Sandy