Pot Roast

I made a pot roast last night (Thursday). I bought the stuff for it Wednesday on my way home from work planning on throwing it into the slow cooker before going to bed. I wasn't feeling very good Wednesday and by the time I got home it was after 9 and since I had to leave for work in 12 hours I decided to leave it until after work Thursday. Felt worse Thursday morning, but somehow got myself into work. Worked for three hours and had to leave. Tried to read when I got home but headache was too bad and so I went to sleep simply because being unconscious seemed the simplest solution. When I woke up I decided I'd better get the pot roast going or put the roast in the freezer. The thought also occurred to me that a pot roast in a slow cooker was about the easiest thing I could actually cook. Except for bacon and eggs, which to be honest didn't appeal to my stomach.

I put 8 oz carrots, 8 oz celery, 1 lb cubed Yukon potatoes, 6 oz shallots, 3 lbs beef roast (browned), 1 (10 3/4  oz) can cream of mushroom with roasted garlic condensed soup and 1/4 cup Worcestershire Sauce into my slow cooker. Why shallots instead of onions? I'd never used them before and was curious of how they'd work.

I had some raw veggies (carrots and celery I had on hand for some reason) and saltines for dinner. I then read for awhile and wondered what time it was. I expected it to be something like 1am, but it was only coming onto 9pm. I was too tired and groggy to do much and too rested to go back to sleep. What to do What to do...

Hmm, isn't this what the internet was invented for? I decided to surf for a while. I also worked on my Lunch reference page for "The critter @ home". Look for the Lunch Time link under pages. After a couple of hours I was ready for bed.

This morning I opened the slow-cooker and divided the pot roast and veggies into a couple of storage containers and put it in the fridge. I did try a small bowl and it tasted great! The roast itself is falling apart and the veggies were flavorful. I'll have more for lunch; here at home since I have today off.

A day off, mostly wasted since I'm still sick. Why can I made myself work (usually) when I'm sick, but on my day off I'm lucky if I can force myself from the bed to the recliner? There are a dozen things I should do today and I know I'll be luck to get just a couple of them done.

Lunching with Mr Bento episode 02

This is my second entry about Mr Bento and the lunches I put through him. My first one was the entry: Today's Lunch with Mr Bento posted September 9th.

First, who or what is Mr Bento? Made by Zojirushi, the Mr. Bento Stainless Lunch Jar (SL-JAE14) consists of a stainless steel, vacuum insulated, outer container with 4 microwaveable inner bowls, included is a forked spoon with snap-on cover and a zippered carrying bag. The size of the various inner containers are: Main Bowl 15.2 oz., Large Side Bowl 10.1 oz., Small Side Bowl 6.8 oz., Soup Bowl 9.5 oz. The company offers several lunch jars with this one being the largest. You can see how some people use it in the the Flickr group: Mr. Bento. I've added a Flickr Slideshow at the bottom of this page to make it easier for you.

My second Mr Bento lunch this month (Monday, September 13th) consisted of Blackened Chicken Strips on Pasta with Cajun Sauce from the BigOven recipe site. Apple sauce, the end of last week's Brownies, and some Blue Bunny No Sugar Added Reduced Fat Ice Cream Vanilla. I put the ice cream in Mr Bento's soup bowl and yes it does stay frozen. Well, it takes a little preparation and forethought but it can be done.

The Blackened Chicken on Pasta was good. Not 5-star but a solid 3.5. I may at some future time play with the recipe a little to make it more suited to my personal preferences. As mentioned above I found it on the BigOven recipe site. I mention this because recently, most of the recipes I've found really interesting I've found on TasteSpotting. This is sort of a best of the best food blogs site. Members of TasteSpotting submit images/links from around the web and the submissions are reviewed and the best served up complete with the most delicious images.  Everything there looks great, even the things I know I wouldn't like. I've added a Feed roll at the bottom of the column to the right for those of you who'd like to see the most recent additions to TasteSpotting's site.

Today's Lunch with Mr Bento

This morning I broke out my Mr Bento and, for lunch, filled it with left-over Curried Ground Turkey and Potatoes, apple sauce and a brownie from Pillsbury's Sugar-Free Brownie mix. As food photography goes this isn't a great picture, but it is what it is.

If you're wondering how I got a round brownie I used two 4" springform pans and then put the rest of the batter in a loaf pan. I purchased the 4" pans mostly to use when cooking for my Mr Bento. In addition to the usual baked goods I've used them for meatloaf which fits nicely into the two larger containers in the Mr Bento.