Crock pot chuck roast

I thought a very good first real post would be about my crock pot. First, because there have been many people who ask me for crock pot recipes (ok, to be honest, people usually ask about them because I have started the conversation about my love for my crock pot--maybe they are only asking to be polite). Second, the crock pot is wonderful--it's an easy way to make fresh, delicious food with minimal effort--or a way to time-shift preparation to morning-before-kids-get-up or naptime.

Also, the hubby has this thing about 'slabs of meat'--essentially, if he has to use a knife to cut it, he doesn't like it. He wants stews, meat that is fall-apart tender, or meat between bread. Since I want to eat something besides sandwiches and stews, the crock pot fits the bill nicely.

Tonight, I am slow cooking a chuck roast in some home-made bbq sauce. After cooking on low all day, it's very easy to shred it with a fork and serve it on some buns.

It's possible to just slow-cook in bottled sauce, but it's not going to be as good. Partly, the jarred sauce is too thick, and doesn't mix well with the fat that cooks out of the beef. It also doesn't have anything like the nice flavor complexity you can get from making your own.

This is my basic recipe, which you can customize in a hundred different ways:

1 medium onion, chopped
1 tablespoon bottled minced garlic
1 can Coke
1/3 cup Worchester sauce
1 can pureed tomato
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon dried mustard
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

A few alternatives: brown sugar of course works nicely if you don't want the coke; ketchup also works well in place of the pureed tomatoes, although if you go that route you will probably want to cut the vinegar and some of whatever sweetener you are using. I keep meaning to try it with fresh diced tomatoes, which would melt into the sauce over the course of the day and would add a sweetness of their own, but haven't tried it yet.

I am also a big fan of liquid smoke if you like that nice smokey taste.

Another great thing to do with a good chuck roast is pot roast, of course; the nice thing about pot roast is that you can throw in some veggies for a nice one-pot meal.

My basic roast:

2-3 lbs chuck roast
1 onion, cut into chunks
1 bag mini carrots
2 baking potatoes, cut into chunks
1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1 can cream of mushroom soup

Just put the veggies on the bottom, salt and pepper the roast and lay it on top, sprinkle the garlic on top of the roast and then pour the cream of mushroom soup on top. Cook all day on low; it's a good old stand-by.

Chinese roast:

You can really have a lot of fun playing around with aromatic vegetables in a slow cooker. One ingredient not used enough that does wonderful in the slow cooker is ginger. Just get about a 3-inch ginger root, peel it, chop it, and then put it in the slow cooker with a chuck roast, some chopped onion, garlic, salt and pepper and a cup of teriyaki sauce. I serve this with some stir-fry vegetables (the bags of pre-cut stir fry in the produce section of the grocery store) and rice.

You can also make a delicious, deep flavored roast with onion (it's rare I make anything in the crock pot without onion--it add some very necessary and delicious liquid to the pot), red wine, garlic, and ketchup. Shred the meat, stir in some sour cream at the end and serve it over egg noodles and you have beef stroganoff.

This is long now, so I will save my chicken, pork, and veggie slow cooker recipes for another day.