Weekend Cooks and Crafts

Well, I had a very marvelous, relaxing weekend. I love a long weekend (who doesn't). Plenty of time to cook and craft! I only cooked twice (had to enjoy some nights out and football), but I crafted and knitted a ton to make up for it.

On Friday, I made fried rice, which is one of my staples and go a to quick dinner. But, I will talk about it another time.

First crafting! On Saturday I hit the clearance sale at Micheal's hard. I bought a ton of paper, card stock, glitter, ribbon and other general supplies. And then spent the weekend (in addition to knitting, of course) making cards and frou-frou Valentine's Day crafts (mostly inspired from the Martha Stewart website's Valentine's day section). Now I am not a major Valentine's day person, but I do love to craft and I love hand made cards. I will post some pictures of them later today (if I can). The cat also enjoyed crafting, he kept jumping on the paper to stop it from moving, very adorable.

Monday night, which was this week's Sunday (roasting night!), I made pot roast and mash potatoes (using the left over butter milk from the corn muffins). It was in the slow cooker, so not really roasting, but has that patient, lazy Sunday, flavorful feel to it. Plus the meat is guaranteed to be moist and no knives are necessary to eat it.

Pot Roast:
2-3 Lbs of chuck roast
2 yellow onions
2-3 Tbsp of Flour
2-3 Tbsp brown sugar
3 leeks
3 Carrots
3 garlic cloves
Fresh Thyme
Fresh Parsley
Avocado Oil (or another high heat oil)
2 Cups beef stock
1/2 a large can of grape tomatoes
Salt, pepper, red pepper flakes.

Heat the oil in a pan. Salt and pepper the meat, and rub with a sprinkling of fresh thyme. Then lightly flour the the roast, then rub brown sugar all over as well. Brown meat of both sides in the hot pan, so that sugar caramelizes (a minute or 2 on both sides). Put meat in the slow cooker. Give onions, garlic and leeks a rough chop. Lower heat on pan, and slightly brown the onions, garlic and leeks, let cook down on low for about 5 minutes. In the mean time, chop carrots and put in slow cooker. Add stock, and tomatoes and juice (from the can) to slow cooker as well. Add thyme, parsley, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. When the onion mixture has cooked down a bit, add that as well. Stir so that meat is more on the top and veggies are all mixed in. Cook on low for 8 hours.

Take meat out of the slow cooker and let stand for 10 minutes before slicing (it will fall apart like slow cooker goodness should). Serve meat with the veggies and gravy on the side or on top (and mash potatoes on the side)

Happy Eating.