Inspirations from cheese in a can. joey, kelly and danny.

surely you expected this.  if i’m going to post every day this month, there will be a couple of recipes (including, i feel, joey’s birthday cupcakes.  not your ordinary cupcake, i assure you).  but they’ll be good, don’t worry.  and easy, that’s really all i do.  also, don’t be concerned that we will overuse the eponymous canned cheese in our recipes.  while we enjoy aerosol cheese as much as the next family, we rarely use it in recipes….we just spray it on triscuits, or right into our mouths.  no, faithful readers, (and i realize i may lose you here, jackie), today we’re talking about large hunks of beef.  some are so bold as to call this recipe the best beef dip ever…..at least that’s what it’s called on allrecipes.com.  i won’t pretend to be a connoisseur of roast beef or beef dips, but i will say this one is good and quite possibly the easiest beef dip ever.  my sister danyelle showed me the recipe a few years ago and i whip it out when i want lots of good cook points without having to do much work.  i made it yesterday in honor of joey’s birthday weekend (i’ve just been notified that this will now be extended to birthday week.  of course, of course.)

here’s what you do:  get a roast (yesterday i used top round because it was on sale at stuportarget when i went friday).  the recipe calls for a 4 pounder, which i never see.  i used two 2.5 pounders.  put the roast in the crockpot.  throw in a spring of fresh rosemary (if you’d like to swing by and take some from our mailbox rosemary forest, feel free), or use dried if you must.  throw in two cloves of garlic…..i leave them whole so i can fish them out after, and threefour bay leaves.  add a small bottle of soy sauce (i use kikkoman less sodium, 10 oz) and six cups of water, or enough to cover the roast.  put your crock pot on low and cook it all day.  today, after about 7 hours, i took out one of the roasts and replaced it with some quartered potatoes and let them cook for about two hours on low.  they were good.  danny even ate a couple.  last night we had the roast, potatoes, and asiago cheese bread.  tonight we will have roast beef and cheese on french bread (with horseradish, of course), with little bowls of beef juice (or jus, if you’re fronch) on the side.  then i’ll strain and save the rest of the juice/jus and ideally, in theory, if all goes according to plan (qualified enough?) make french onion soup later in the week.  k?  good.  sorry there are no pictures in my first recipe post, but really, crock pots and raw chunks of cow are not really so attractive anyway, no?

here’s the version you can print out:

lazy cook’s pot roast (adapted from this recipe at allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS
4 pounds (give or take) beef chuck roast
2 cloves garlic, whole
1 sprig fresh rosemary
3-4 bay leaves
1 cup kikkoman lower sodium soy sauce (or whatever you have)
6 cups water

Place roast in slow cooker.  Season with garlic, rosemary, and bay leaves.  Pour in soy sauce and water.  Cook on low setting for 6 to 10 hours.  Lie to everyone and tell them it was very difficult and you’re exhausted.  See if they’ll bring you dessert.