Sunday Pot Roast

I'm not sure why I'm calling this a Sunday Pot Roast when you can make it on a Saturday as well.  It's not really a weekday kind of a dish even though it braises in the slow cooker, mainly because no one wants to sear meat first thing in the morning.  This is more the Italian style of pot roast, with tomatoes and red pepper, and though the picture doesn't do it justice, we created a lovely sauce with an immersion blender.  As you can probably judge from the pounds of meat in this recipe, you'll have a ton of welcome leftovers.  Top some egg noddles with the fallen apart meat and sauce or pair with some potatoes.....you know what you're doing. 

3.5 - 4 lbs chuck roast
2 cups wine
1 1/2 cups baby bella mushrooms, sliced
1 onion, cut roughly
1/4 c tomato paste
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3 roasted red peppers
1 T dry seasoning (oregano, herbs de provence) or a small bunch of a fresh herbs

Cut chuck roast in half, generously season with salt and pepper.  Sear on all sides on a hot cast iron skillet.  In a small bowl stir wine, tomato paste and seasoning together.  Throw all ingredients along with meat into a slow cooker and let cook on high for about 6 hours, until tender.  Remove meat from slow cooker onto a plate, and with an immersion blender, puree all vegetables and sauce until a nice smooth and thick sauce is formed.  You can do this in a blender if you don't have an immersion one.  Pull meat apart in large chucks with a fork and place back into the slow cooker to stay warm.  Serve over egg noodles.   

Homemade Cheez-its

Ok, so may be I am turning into a hippie mom that makes everything from scratch, but in all honesty, I was craving Cheez-its and I was so curious about this recipe I had to try it.  I'm not going to lie to you like all the other bloggers out there and tell you these tasted exactly like Cheez-its, though to quote my husband when I said they weren't quite like the boxed kind "yes, because they taste like actual cheese, not like salty, cheese flavoring".  These are delightful cheese crackers, flaky, crisp, with a perfect cheese punch.  Everyone in the family loved them, even our sweet terrier who is usually quite respective of my daughter's snacks could not resist the toddling hand waving each little cracker in her face, and stole more than one from her only half suspecting hands.  These are highly addictive and won't last long, which is probably a good thing since without preservatives they wouldn't last long.  The recipe is incredibly easy, I swear to you.  It's just like making pie dough, and even the shaping was easy.  I wasn't going to buy a fluted pastry cutter just for this recipe, so I used a pizza cutter to slice up the dough into squares and it took seconds.  Use a chopstick to press little holes.  I used a mild cheddar cheese, but use a sharp one for even stronger flavors.  Original recipe can be found here.

8 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup flour
4 T butter, room temperature
1 t kosher salt
1 T ice water

In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream butter, cheese and salt.  Add flour and mix on low until pebbles are formed.  Slowly add water and mix until dough is barely formed.  Dump onto plastic wrap, pat into a disk, wrap and chill in fridge for about an hour.  I like my dough soft when I roll it out, so I let it sit out at room temperature for about an hour before I rolled it out.  Divide dough in half and roll into a thin (1/8 inch or less) rectangle (or whatever shape works, mine was nothing like a rectangle).  With a pizza cutter or "fluted pastry cutter" slice up and then across into 1 inch squares.  Press a hole into each one if you feel like it (I used a chopstick).  Place each square onto a silicone lined baking sheet.  You can do two sheets which may use up the entire batter.  Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes.  Keep an eye on them after about 12 to make sure they don't over bake.  They should be ever so slightly golden on the edges.  You can also find many recipes online with more step by step pictures.