Update: Pot Roast

DAD makes a few dishes really well. Pot roast is one of them.

For tips and tricks, click the button to read more.

The update has pictures of browning the meat in a pressure cooker and the "jiggle top" in operation.

To start, Dad allows the choice grade chuck to age in the refrigerator for a few days. Covered in kosher salt and wrapped in towels (changed daily) excess moisture evaporates  from the beef allowing Dad to get a good sear.

Meet Mr. Beef.

Once aged, below, the beef loses its shiny patina. A dull, almost satin, sheen is evidence that the beef is ready and will brown quickly.

Mr. Beef, after his water weight loss, is ready for browning.

Below, Dad covered the meat in cooking spray and earned an excellent sear in less than ten minutes. He seared and deglazed the pot, reserving the fond for use in the gravy.

Mr. Beef sports a nice tan.

While the photo above looks like a perfectly done steak (if you like rare anyway), if you cut into it now, it would be very tough and chewy. Of the options to cook it, Dad has found the pressure cooker to be the most effective and least time consuming. So he placed it and three cups of water into one and let the jiggle top jiggle for about 45 minutes.

Tough no longer. Mr. Beef embraces his tender side.

Now that is an excellent piece of meat! Again he reserved the liquid for gravy. He also combined it with the rib gelatin from a previous blog post.

He has not had good luck with vegetables in the pressure cooker. By the time the weight begins to jiggle, often the veg has turned to mush. He has found that they are best done boiled. Carrots take the longest and so get started first. Next he adds the celery followed by the onion. Dad doesn't normally make potatoes, but this dinner was for Opa, so he pressure cooked some Yukon Gold potatoes for 10 minutes.

Everyone into the pool. You too onion.

He likes the aroma of oregano, basil, and bay leaf with his veg, so he adds that too.There is plenty of salt on the meat, so he withheld it from the veg.

Why doesn't he add garlic until the very end? Come New Family loyal readers! Say it with him, "Garlic turns bitter when cooked for an extended amount of time." That time is about 30 minutes and the veg above took much longer than that.

This time he added the garlic to the gravy. Opa is not as much of a fan of it as is the New Family Parents, and prefers very little gravy, and then only on his potatoes, so Dad accommodated his taste by adding only a little to the gravy. (But shhhh! No one mention that Opa went back for a second, big, helping of gravy!)

Mr. Beef and friends are ready for service.

Additional Update: What to do with the left overs.

Day old pot roast is not nearly as good as when served the day it is made. And sometimes Dad makes a bit too much and doesn't want to chew on dry beef for days on end. So he will cube the beef and warm it in au jus making beef stew. He might include any leftover veg (there wasn't any). Making a beef stew is pretty straight forward. A recipe can easily be found online. But here is a tip you may like (and not find in the first page query results). Try adding tomato paste. Dad does this (like everything) to taste, so a precise measurement is not offered here. In the 6 cups beef and broth shown above he added about 3 ounces starting with a little at a time and working up to the point of too much tasting each new addition along the way. Then he balanced the paste with a little bit of sugar.

Above, the other ingredients are beef bullion, dried oregano, basil, garlic powder, and bay leaf.

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Needs a Nap

AS nap time approached, the Twin's became unusually quiet as if they might actually fall asleep on the couch. No such event occurred, but it was a nice fantasy to indulge in for a moment.

Let's Ride!

EJ has discovered that the walking toy converts to a riding toy and has taken to it. Below, his expression seems to convey skepticism.

"Really Dad? Sasquatch will help guide me back to camp after the snipe hunt? I am going to need substantive evidence."

Bunny Ears

DAD did not realize how well these matched EJ's hair until he examined the photograph at a later time. The Parent's did not buy them, but perhaps should have.

Don't worry son, you will never suffer the humiliation of a pink bunny suit.

Now a brown one, hmmmm.

Update: Climb

Update: 2/26/14

They like to climb into the crib too. Below they both decided they wanted to play with the toys in his crib, so they hauled themselves up and into it. Dad envisions a need to secure the crib to the wall to prevent it from tipping. Either one by their self may not tip it, but if they are both hauling themselves up at the same time, it could topple over.

Huggey

EJ has always been a cuddler (an apt description provided by New Family blog reader and friend Missi H). Now he has discovered that Liesel will tolerate him wrapping his arms around her.

EJ also now like to pat his Parent's back and or stroke up and down (above he pats Buggy), a behavior that Dad believes he learned through example, though he is not aware of actually stroking or patting his back.

Flipping adorable.

Beef Stroganoff

DAD saw that the sour cream was about to go out of date so he cobbled together Beef Stroganoff.

He browned about 1 1/2 lbs. of ground beef and seasoned with powdered garlic.

He browned sliced sweet onions in the convection oven. He then dumped a can of mushrooms over top of them. He added beef base to the sour cream and combined until it tasted right.

Then he dumped the mushrooms, onion, and sour cream mix on top. He combined it and cooked it thoroughly. 

It sure is not a pretty dish, But it tastes wonderful. It is typically served over egg noodles,

Storing Twins

FOR the clutterd home that needs to get stuff organized and put away, Dad recommends this plastic set of storage drawers. The hold the Twins nicely.

Update: Buggy's Dress

BUGGY loves playing dress up. See previous posts on hats. She brought this dress to Dad to put on her this morning. She wore it yesterday but Dad forgot to take pictures. It was taken off and cast aside when she was prepared for bed at that time. She found it today and brought it to him to put on her. Dad took video.

Here is a still of her in her dress.

Stir Fry

MOM and Dad have been doing a lot of stir fry lately. But Dad doesn't like the texture of vegetables "fried" in oil. So he got the idea to bake them in the convection oven. The onions and peppers turned out great. They were not oily at all. However, the broccoli florets, water chestnuts, snow peas, and baby corn were not improved. That may be because the onions and peppers were fresh, while the remaining stir fry vegetables were previously frozen and packaged together in a stir fry kit.

Bell peppers awaiting oven space.

Dad used to like green bell peppers. He recalls enjoying them as a kid, both raw and cooked for stuffed bell peppers. But he has not enjoyed them as an adult and wonders if he changed, or if the peppers have changed. While the yellow, red, and orange ones above turned out great, the green ones were slightly bitter and were discarded.

"Sat?" "Sat?" "Sat?"

THE Twin's are putting phrases together. Buggy's most oft used is a question for what is that. This comes out as "Sat?" She points to objects and issues the question often in groups of three.

Dad is working on getting on video. Hopefully it'll be available soon.

"Get Down!"

RECENTLY, Dad found Buggy out of her crib when he went to check on her in their room. He had left her in the crib. This has happened before. She is fairly adept at climbing into it too.

So Dad decided to catch her on camera. What came of it was hilarious. His command to, "get down," was not met with swift enough action by her for his liking, so he repeated it. She hastened her response, but both Twin's responded promptly to the second order.

In the background, EJ interpreted it as, "lay down," and flung himself to the mattress.

Buggy's Apron

Its actually a dress for a smaller girl. But it suits her as an apron. 

Buggy atop EJ

THE shrieks of joy brought Dad down the hall to investigate. This is what he found.

Helping to Clean? Not.

FEEDING toddlers makes cleaning floors a multiple times per day experience, so Dad purchased a lightweight vacuum just for that purpose.

They like to imitate Dad, but turn the vacuum on and try to get them to do something productive with it, and they run away and hide.

Work, it is a four letter word.

Playing in a Box

BOXES are the best source of fun for young imaginations!

Ethan James

Lasagna

A long time ago, Ruth M. shared a recipe for lasagna with New Family Grandma. Grandma shared it with Dad and he has made it many times since varying several components of the recipe.

If there ever were an inspiration that got him interested in cooking, that recipe was it.

The traditional recipe requires a good deal of time and about $40 worth of ingredients (priced at full retail and in 2004 dollars). Dad wanted to make something quickly using ingredients on hand.

A jar of Classico pasta sauce went in to the blender with dried oregano and basil. A half stick of butter was melted with powdered garlic and salt. Dad has learned to heat the garlic and salt in a little bit of water first to suspend the solids in solution. Ruth shared the technique of melting the butter before applying it to the bread first,

 Then he mops the entire loaf with garlic butter, wraps it up in aluminum and bakes it.

Instead of traditional lasagna noodles, he used whole wheat rotini noodles. 

A salad spinner dewaters the pasta well. 

Not all ingredients were on hand. Mom had to buy the sausage. Above Dad is browning it. 

Dad laid a base layer of rotini noodles, then spread a layer of oregano and basil infused ricotta cheese. He recalls that there was an egg mixed in as well. 

The blended pasta sauce with sausage mixed in went over top the ricotta. 

Shredded whole milk mozzarella was next.

Provolone followed.

Then into the convection oven until the cheese was golden brown and delicious.

The convection oven needs a good cleaning. Above the result of a dirty oven was uneven browning.

Finally the garlic bread went in where it was steamed by the water in the butter.

Dad has had the thought, but not yet tried, of clarifying the butter and using only the solids on the bread.

No, its not low carb. But this is, at most, a twice a year dish. So that makes it all the more dee-lish!

A subsequent iteration of the dish appears above. They needed to get the rest of the ingredients used up. Yes that is peperoni on top!