Eternity

Eternity  n. The length of time required for a 1 kilogram pot roast to be eaten in a 1 person household.

I know: Dorothy Parker said it better. Oh well.

February is, as all my American buddies know, National Pot Roast Month. I thought that in observance of the month, I should make a pot roast. Besides, I’ve never done one before, and there’s a first time for everything.

I did some research. A pot roast uses the cooking technique called “braising”, which means that the meat is browned and then cooked in a covered pot with a small amount of liquid. (You don’t want to cover the meat with the liquid, because that’s “stewing”.) You can add some aromatic vegetables, like onions, celery, carrots, to the liquid. You cook at a low temperature for a longish period of time in a covered container in your oven or on top of the stove, which tenderizes the meat and keeps it moist. The liquid can be water, stock, wine, beer, and so on. My favourite beef stew is the Belgian Carbonade à la Flamande, which uses beer, so that’s the liquid I chose. (I also had a bottle that I wanted to use up.)

Here’s the browned roast on top of the vegetables, with the beer added, ready to go into the oven.

No pictures of it out of the oven, all hot and steaming and being carved, because…um…I forgot to take them. Oh well; next time. To be honest, I’ve had 5 meals from that 1 kilo roast, there are another 3 wrapped and ready to go in the freezer (and I had to clear out some of my stash to put it there !!), and I’m weary of pot roast. Maybe there won’t be a next time.

But I am wondering. How do you season your potroast? I used beer for the liquid; what do you use? Which herbs and spices?  Do you use a rub, a marinade, or ???

In Other News

Yesterday, a small group met at the Ginger Press for Maie and Taiu Landra of Koigu to sign copies of Maie’s book Knits from a Painter's Palette. Maie spoke about her early days in the garment biz designing and making one-of-a-kind garments from scratch, her early experiments dyeing and selling yarn, and up to the company’s now highly successful yarns. The book is a really nice production, with good colour, good font size: it could easily be priced $10 higher. As Carol wrote in her review, if you like Koigu, the designs will do it for you. Many of the designs (if not all; sorry, I can’t remember) use a modular constructions approach, which will either appeal to you or not. (Maie and I were in Horst Schultz’s class in Toronto a couple of years ago, held just before he presented at Stitches. Which is not to say she wasn’t doing modular work before taking that class.)

Emma is so taken by one of the sweaters, that she got Maie to select colours for her. (She was musing aloud that she might maybe possibly get it finished in time to perhaps wear it at HickTech*.) Lisa, in turn, was so taken by the designs in the book that she got Emma to teach her to knit. (And in 45 seconds she was knitting. How’s that?) Since there is talk that Maie might do a workshop on modular knitting at the Ginger Press – perhaps with this scarf from the book as the target project – maybe we’ll see Lisa there.

Speaking of technology, I always read my blog on machines running various flavours of Windows. I'm wondering if those of you who read it on machines running other operating systems (Mac, etc) ever have problems with any of the text not displaying properly?

There’s the oven timer ringing: beer bread is baked. (Yes Jim, carbs galore.) Have a great week everybody.

* How the Internet Connects Knowledge: The Rural and Modern Technology Forum

Comments

[Susan]

I cook my potroast pretty much the same each time. I do not pre-sear it!! Gave that up in the 70's. I just pop it into a pan or roaster, or crock pot and add one package of Knorr Dry Vegetable soup mix. I might add a can of coke soda, wine, beer or nothing! It really does not need much in the way of liquid, you are not cooking it in the liquid! I use carrots, potatoes with the skin on, celery. That's pretty standard. I also usually use a 'seven bone chuck', not a roast.

[fleegle]

Well-done meat--blergh!

Ted writes : Is "blergh" good or bad?

[Mel]

I haven't had pot roast in, well, at least 13 1/2 years, so I couldn't begin to comment on that. No-knead bread, though? Some of that will have to go in the oven tomorrow, 'cause I've got a 25# bag of spelt flour just waiting to be used.

I've never had problems with your blog on my Mac using Firefox. If you were writing it in Devanagari, though, Firefox wouldn't be able to render it properly.

[--Deb]

I grew up on Lipton's Onion Soup Mix pot roast, which is still the one and only way my mother makes it. I admit, I think it adds great flavor, but I usually up the flavor quotient by stirring some tomato paste and red wine into the braising liquid. Except for occasional potatoes, we pretty much never cook vegetables in with the roast--in my family's collective opinion, they come out too greasy. (Something with the potatoes can handle--any vegetable that loves being turned into french fries is not going to have trouble with beef juice--but who wants a greasy carrot?)

[M-H]

Love pot roast. Have been learning to do it in a slow cooker. No problem with your blog on a Mac - I make my typepad blog on a Mac with no problems either. I think that typepad is well over all the issues of platforms, browsers and compatibility. I wish the programmers of the software we use at work were as good!

[Carol]

We're having some time this week. we just use beef stock or broth and alittle wine. I like fresh garlic too. I want that Koigu!

[emmajane]

Yes, because knitting an entire sweater out of fingering weight yarn is going to be FUN! With a Capital F...Just think...it'll be like knitting 16 socks. Consecutively. I think maybe, just maybe, I might do a tension swatch first. Oh why bother. I've knit socks out of koigu. I could just use them as a swatch, right? What could possibly go wrong?

[D2]

Hi Ted!

I don't have a comment. Wait. I do. The Cedar Waxwing Scarf is gorgeous!

I have a ? I am going to thin out my knitting books. If you were going to hold yourself to say, 10 books on knitting, which ones would you choose?

[JoVE]

I use a recipe from a Christmas issue of Canadian Living I bought a few years ago. It involves beer (I usually use stout which I buy specially though friends will also drink it; I'm an ale drinker and know that would work, too). The recipe also involves a bit of mustard and horseradish.

I read your blog in Safari on a Mac. I understand from geekier people that Safari is not the best browser in the world (they would be ruder) but it works for me. And your blog is fine. No issues.

[Dave]

My pot roast: Brown the meat with a medium onion, chopped. Add 1 cup strong coffee, 3/4 cup water, 1 beef bouillon cube, 2 tsp dried basil, 1 tsp rosemary (I usually use more because I LOVE rosemary), 1 minced garlic clove, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper. Cook the heck out of it, and then remove meat from pot. Mix 1/4 cup flour with some water and slowly add to pot, stirring constantly to thicken. Double yumm, especially with mashed taties, Yorkshire pudding, broccoli & carrots.

[sarah]

I cook the UK equivalent of pot roast in several different styles. I usually serve all of them with fresh bread or baking powder biscuits. All begin by browning the meat in olive oil, then adding onions. After that... one continues with a couple of bay leaves, thyme, lots of sliced dark brown mushrooms, and some concentrated beef gravy if I've got it, Oxo cubes if not. I sometimes add 1/4 cup of brandy to this. When cooked thicken the juice (boil down if you've time, cornflour if not) while frying more sliced mushrooms in olive oil (finish with a dot of butter for flavour). Srve the meat slices garnished with fried mushrooms. A similar one omits mushrooms but uses Young's Chocolate Stout as liquid.

Another continues with chopped garlic in the onions, with added chopped celery and carrots. Then bay leaves, oregano and thyme. Add a tin of chopped/crushed tomatoes and 1/3-1/2 bottle drinkable red wine (anything sold as 'cooking' wine is best used for cleaning windscreens).

I usually use some of the leftover meat and juice in a batch of homemade soup.

As others have said, your blog is eminently readable in Safari and Firefox. The odd character displays, er, oddly (there's a hache mark instead of something for lbs? kgs? in Mel's comment), but nothing to worry about.

[Typesetter]

In northern Italy we prepare lots of "wet" roasts, as well call them. We do them on the burner, not in the oven, and use the simplest of all flavorings. Meat is mostly veal, but also pork. The veal, which is very lean (and therefore too dry when cooked) can be basted with some fatty pancetta, or have bits of garlic and/or carrot inserted. We always start out by sealing it in a bit of butter or lard, traditionally, or extravirgin olive oil (a modern and healthy subtitution), or just nothing at all if pancetta is used, we also flavor it with sage and/or rosemary and a bit of black pepper. Than we add the liquid, which can be water, white wine, stock or... Milk! Milk is especially good with pork meat. Just keep cooking the meat until done, lid on, stirring and turning from time to time to prevent from sticking.

[Mozemen]

I cook my pot roasts with water, onion, carrot, and a rub of sweet paprika, ginger, and wasabi. (Don't use garlic, as it can toughen the meat if you're not extraordinarily careful.) None of my guests can ever figure out what spices were used, but they all (even kiddos) go for seconds and thirds.

[Duffy]

It looks like you had a loin roast. My experience with American style pot roast is that it's done on a cheap cut, like chuck, that long cooking will tenderize. Here's how Mom did hers.

Flour and brown the meat in a dutch oven, seasoning with pepper. Pour in enough liquid to cover the bottom no more than half way up the roast. Throw in onions, carrots, celery, potatoes. Cook covered in a slow oven for at least a couple of hours. When the meat is falling off the bones, remove meat and vegetables and make gravy from the dripping.

The simplicity of the preparation I'm sure stems from it originating as a dish cooked in a wood stove. I never saw her use anything fancier than bouillon in the dish but it always tasted very savory, what with the flavors of the onion and celery blending in with the meat.

[Kim]

I read on Linux using the SeaMonkey (what came after Mozilla) reader, and I don't recall ever having problems reading your blog. =)

[Janet]

Use Safari on the Mac and have never had problems with your blog, or most any blogs, actually.

My Pot Roast:
http://www.jonassisters.org/cgi-ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000008

[Jason]

Yum! If you are tired of it, take them out of the stash, I mean freezer, pack it with lots of dry ice, and you know where to send it. hehehe

Your scarf turned out so beautiful. The colors are perfect. But where did the hot leather dude go? :-) Do you like knitting with energized singles?

[spider]

Ted, I'd make a bet that I've eaten more pot roast than anyone who is reading this blog.
My Ma was pot roast crazy when we were growing up. I guess it wasn't too expensive back then.
In any case, I've been married 27 years and have never made a pot roast, given that loaded pot roast background. Your's looks good, tho.

I owe you an e-mail...soon.

[anne marie in philly]

light teriyake marinade or a sesame/ginger marinade into the crock pot. add the roast, onion, potato, carrot. slow cook for 10 hours. eat. burp. feel good.

simple, but satisfying.

[NancyMaria]

A friend told me about your blog, so here I am! And I like what I have read!
Let's see, how do I season my roast: First put it in the crockpot; next comes 1-2 bay leaves, several shakes of marjoram, sage, & thyme, 2-3 beef bullion cubes, 1 med quartered onion (chopped fine if you like it in your gravy), and 1 1/2-2 c water. After roast is cooked, place liquid (minus the bay leaves) in a medium sized pot and thicken with what you would use. I use cornstarch and a little water. This gravy over potatoes and the meat is so very good.
I cook like the German cook my mother is.

[Warrior Knitter]

Love pot roast. I do one in foil. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a large baking pan (13" x 9" or bigger) with heavy-duty foil. I season the meat (to taste) with pepper & granulated garlic (or garlic pepper, if available) then put the roast on the foil in the pan. Mix together cream of mushroom or celery soup and (Lipton's) beefy onion dry soup mix and spread it over the top of the roast covering all surfaces. Add whatever veggies you like to the pan along the sides (potatoes, carrots, onions, etc). Sprinkle about 1/3 cup water over the veggies & season lightly with garlic pepper, if you want. Seal foil & roast about 1 hour per lb. If you have a thicker cut of meat it might be longer. If the pepper and garlic have made the meat a bit to spicy, sprinkle a bit of brown sugar over the meat to sweeten it.

And on the techie side ~ I read your blog with Linux Slackware 11, mostly with the Firefox browser but I've also used Opera and Sea Monkey. No problem with any of them