Day Sixty-five--Pot Roast and Mashed Potatoes

Hello all. Whew. It's been hot around here lately. Too hot. I moved out of Florida to escape the heat. Last summer was perfect for me. High 70's to low 80's with a day or maybe two days of the mercury seeing 90. Those one or two days were perfect to drag out the kiddie pool and go nuts. It would then go back to it's normal 70s and 80s. It appears we are having our 90's this week. I did see in the forecast 70's again next week. Whew.

Now, on to dinner. It was a good one. I finally did something I've never done before. I cooked a pot roast. That's right, I've never done it before. I've never really been a beef person. I'm not sure why, but I never order steak out. Never have. The extent of my beef consumption has been burgers. The first time we ordered our grass fed beef from Chris and Amanda I asked for mostly ground beef because I use them to make chilies, tacos, burgers. They humored me and also threw in a couple of steaks. I think this was done for Tim's sake. They also knew that once we had them, we would be hooked. Well, we have a freezer full of roasts and big hunks of meat. I'm wasn't sure what to do with them. Then, I got my new cookbook that I'm absolutely in love with. The Pioneer Woman Cooks. I've been making recipes off of her most fantastic blog and had to have the cookbook. One thing to note is that these recipes are not low in calorie. I have to remind myself that her family runs a cattle ranch. They burn a lot more calories than my family does so I will not be using this cookbook on a daily basis, unless I start using my treadmill for four hours a day and I don't see that happening any time soon.

Anywhooo...on to dinner:

Pot roast with mashed potatoes

This was a nice middle of the week meal. It was very filling. It made a ton. We had lots of leftovers. They boys inhaled the mashed potatoes. They were very good. They weren't too big on the beef but did enjoy the carrots. I myself obsess about carrots that have been roasting with beef for a long period of time. Everyone knows that I get a huge claim to them. The recipe was very easy to follow. I think the thing that I liked the most was that I made it all earlier in the afternoon. The roast baked in the oven at a low temp for 3 hours and then I just reheated the potatoes. Once Connor came home from karate, dinner was ready and the kitchen was clean. Those are my kind of nights. We even went out and worked in the yard after dinner. That rarely happens.

I think that is all for now. Until later...peace out. =)

Day Forty-six--Lasagna

Oh man, tonight's dinner was awesome. It was loved by all. What was it?

Lasagna!

This meal almost didn't happen. Well, it would have happened but it almost ended up being a really late dinner. No worries. It all worked out. My problem was that I forgot to take a pound of ground beef out of the freezer. I momentarily freaked out when I was down in the freezer too. I had to call Tim at work to find out if we had run out of ground beef. It turns out he had stacked it behind a bunch of other steaks. Whew. My problem then turned into the fact that the sauce was supposed to simmer for an hour and a half. It was 2:30 by the time I realized this and I had not started the pasta or anything yet.

I threw the package of ground beef in a cold bowl of water. I then made the pasta dough. While it was resting, I got the other things for the sauce ready. I chopped onions and garlic. I opened all the cans of tomatoes and got all of my spices ready. I got impatient and decided to start the sauce anyway. I cooked the onions and garlic in a bit of olive oil and then added a pound of Italian sausage. Once that was all browned up, I threw in the beef. It was mostly thawed and the heat in the pan quickly thawed the rest. Then I added crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and tomato sauce. That's a lot of tomato! You want to know the cool thing? Wegman's sells store brand organic tomatoes. I love buying store brand and not name brand. This is a total change from a younger me. A good change I think. Anywhooo, I got all of the meat sauce ingredients stewing and let it set for an hour and a half. While the sauce was stewing, I rolled out the pasta dough and cut it into lasagna sized pieces. I've decided that lasagna noodles are the easiest pasta to make. I let them hang out and hangers to dry (I learned my lesson from last time). Then I got to grating my Parmesan cheese, mixing my ricotta with an egg and unrolling my roll of fresh mozzarella.

Now comes the assembly line. I dropped a couple of noodles at a time into the boiling water. I ladle a bunch of the meat sauce into the bottom of my pan and then lay some cooked noodles down. Fresh noodles only boil for like 2 minutes. I had a layer of four noodles and then put a layer of the ricotta cheese mixture down. Then I put a small layer of mozzarella cheese down. I top that with a scoop of meat sauce and then a sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Rinse, repeat. I had 12 noodles, so I had three layers of four noodles. It made for one very heavy pan of lasagna. It baked in the oven for 25 minutes.

This meal was devoured by all. It was delicious. It also made a ton. Everyone will get to have some for lunch today as well. Yay, one less meal I need to figure out. Works for me. I think that is all I have for now. We have one science lab left to do and then we have the summer off. Well, there will be creative writing projects and I'm going to attempt a quilt, and some gardening...I guess it won't be a summer off, but a summer without sit down school. Until later, happy cooking!

Cows on Drugs

There is an interesting opinion piece in the NY Times today. Cows on Drugs. No, cattle are not sitting around smoking weed. This author talks about how animals are given antibiotics that we, as humans, use. We then ingest meat, eggs, milk that carries these antibiotics in it. Doesn't sound bad right? Wrong. Now people are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Doctors are trying to treat illnesses with antibiotics and people aren't getting any better. There are people dying (a lot) because their treatments aren't working. Do cows need drugs? No. They need to be pasture grazed. They need to eat food that is normal for them (not corn). They don't need to grow as fast and as big as they can so more money can be made. It's disgusting.

So, yes, mass production of cattle and drugs to make them bigger and disease resistant puts cheaper meat in your plate, but at what cost? At slowly making you and bacteria immune to antibiotics that you might need later to help fight a disease. I'll continue to buy organic, grass fed, pasture raised beef and I'll eat the cost. If I can't afford to buy organic meat then I will eat vegetarian until I can afford it. It's not worth it to me or my family to take the risks.