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eveglassFor the past two weeks, and continuing for the next month and a half or so, my weekly D&D group has been meeting at my house. Last week, I was inspired to cook up a batch of chili and cornbread for the game. This week, I wanted to do pot roast in the slow cooker.
Enter problem #1: I couldn't find any affordable pot roast. In fact, I really couldn't find much of anything at the first grocery store I went to, and was forced to brave the -30 wind chills yesterday morning to go to my local store and pick up five pounds of stewing beef. (Yes, five pounds. This is what happens when you're serving ten people.)
Problem #2: I overestimated the size of my crock pot. My initial plan was to have the stew contain onions, baby carrots, potatoes, and sweet potatoes along with the beef. Instead, I had just enough place for the beef, a couple of onions and 3/4 of the baby carrots I picked up. Absolutely no room for potatoes! So I decided to leave them out and do a side of roasted potatoes instead.
Problem #3: I overestimated the size of my baking sheet. So I only got to roast two of the three sweet potatoes and about 3/4 of the regular potatoes. Thankfully, it was enough that everyone got a serving.
In the end, both the stew and the potatoes were extremely tasty. The sweet potatoes browned *much* faster than the regular potatoes, but I caught them before too many were burnt. And roasted potatoes *in* the stew worked out wonderfully. Given that I wound up serving seven people instead of the expected ten, I've got a few leftovers for today, which makes me happy.
Anyway, no recipe this time because it was mostly improvised. (Though loosely based on this pot roast recipe. Very loosely.) Now I have to figure out what I want to cook for next week!
Enter problem #1: I couldn't find any affordable pot roast. In fact, I really couldn't find much of anything at the first grocery store I went to, and was forced to brave the -30 wind chills yesterday morning to go to my local store and pick up five pounds of stewing beef. (Yes, five pounds. This is what happens when you're serving ten people.)
Problem #2: I overestimated the size of my crock pot. My initial plan was to have the stew contain onions, baby carrots, potatoes, and sweet potatoes along with the beef. Instead, I had just enough place for the beef, a couple of onions and 3/4 of the baby carrots I picked up. Absolutely no room for potatoes! So I decided to leave them out and do a side of roasted potatoes instead.
Problem #3: I overestimated the size of my baking sheet. So I only got to roast two of the three sweet potatoes and about 3/4 of the regular potatoes. Thankfully, it was enough that everyone got a serving.
In the end, both the stew and the potatoes were extremely tasty. The sweet potatoes browned *much* faster than the regular potatoes, but I caught them before too many were burnt. And roasted potatoes *in* the stew worked out wonderfully. Given that I wound up serving seven people instead of the expected ten, I've got a few leftovers for today, which makes me happy.
Anyway, no recipe this time because it was mostly improvised. (Though loosely based on this pot roast recipe. Very loosely.) Now I have to figure out what I want to cook for next week!
