Economize-One roast, three meals!

I fall deeper in love with my crock pot every time I use it.  Not just for the time saving aspect it brings to getting dinner on the table, but also for the grocery budget cost cutting side to it.  It takes cheap cuts of meat, and turns them into mouth watering masterpieces!  The following are three dinners made from one 4-5 lb. beef chuck roast.  The chuck roast will probably run you about $10.00, but since it makes three dinners, it's really a steal!  All of the work is done the first night so for the subsequent two nights, your only job is to reheat.  Enjoy!

For Night 1:  Beef Pot Roast (shown above with a green salad and a fruit salad) from Fix it and Forget it Big Cookbook by Phyllis Pellman Good

Ingredients:  

4-5 lb. beef chuck roast

1 garlic clove, cut in half

salt to taste

pepper to taste

1 carrot, chopped

1 rib celery, chopped

1 small onion, sliced

3/4 cup sour cream

3 Tbls. flour

1/2 cup dry white wine.

1.  Rub roast with garlic.  Season with salt and pepper.  Place in slow cooker.

2.  Add carrots, celery and onion.

3.  Combine sour cream, flour and wine.  Pour into slow cooker.

4.  Cover.  Cook on Low 6-7 hours.

5.  Slice for dinner the first night.  With the remaining roast, shred using two forks and split the shredded meat into two tupperwares.

6.  Prepare dinner for Night 2 and 3 and place in refrigerator.

For Night 2:  Pepper Beef Sandwiches

Ingredients:

One tupperware with shredded beef from above

16 oz. jar of sliced pepperoncini peppers, mostly drained

Hamburger buns

Slices of your favorite cheese, pepper jack recommended.

To the tupperware of beef, add the jar of pepperoncini peppers and a little of the juice.  Cover and refrigerate for Night 2.  When ready to eat, reheat in the microwave.  Serve on hamburger buns topped with your favorite cheese.

For Night 3:  BBQ beef sandwiches

Ingredients:

One tupperware of shredded beef from above

Bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce

Hamburger buns

Add enough BBQ sauce to the shredded beef to make it saucy.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to eat.  When ready, reheat in the microwave.  Serve the BBQ beef on hamburger buns.

Three meals for about $10.00 with minimum prep and minimum cooking.  Can't beat that!  Happy New Year everyone!

Slow Cooker Lasagna

My mother, living in Hawaii, likes to use her slow cooker a lot to avoid heating up her condo.  Because I was doing a lot of the cooking while we were visiting, I adopted her cooking habits.  I came upon this recipe for slow cooker lasagna from Fix it and Forget it Big Cookbook, which is fast becoming my new go to book for quick and cheap dinners.  It made an absolutely HUGE amount that we ate for a few days and then threw out, I'm sure you could halve it.

Convenient Slow Cooker Lasagna adapted from Fix it and Forget it Big Cookbook

Serves: 6-8

Cooking time: 4-6 hours on LOW

Use a 6 quart slow cooker

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs. ground beef

2 29oz. cans tomato sauce

1 onion, chopped

10 oz. elbow macaroni

4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1 1/2 cups cottage cheese

3/4 cups water

1.  Spray the interior of the cooker with nonstick cooking spray or line with a slow cooker bag.

2.  Brown the ground beef and the onion in a nonstick skillet.  Drain off the drippings.  

3.  Stir in the tomato sauce.  Mix well.

4.  Spread one-fourth of the meat sauce on the bottom of the slow cooker.

5.  Arrange one-third of the noodles over the sauce.

6.  Combine the cheeses in a bowl. Spoon one-third of cheeses over the noodles.

7.  Repeat these layers twice.

8.  Top with remaining sauce.

9.  Add water.

10.  Cover and cook on LOW 4-6 hours.

Papaya and Cottage Cheese Salad

My mother made this simple salad of a halved papaya filled with cottage cheese to accompany the lasagna.  At first I wasn't sure about it but the combination of the sweet/salty, lumpy/creamy consistencies really works.  Of course it helps being able to find papayas this sweet and ripe at the local farmers market.

Back to the Snow!

After a wonderful, relaxing and beautiful stay in Hawaii, it's back to the COLD realities of real life.  I can't complain much, I know that most of you have been living in the cold and snow for the past three weeks without the benefit of a Hawaiian vacation.  Let me tell you though, it is a shock to the system to be back home.  We landed two nights ago on an unplowed runway due to active snowing!  Now it's back to housecleaning and catch-up work.  I know, I know, I have no reason to complain, I'm just stating the facts.

Above are some pictures from the farmers market in downtown Kailua-Kona.  No visit to the islands (or anywhere!) would be complete without a trip to the farmers market.  Check out the prices and quality of the starfruit!  The hairy, red fruits are called rambutans locally or also known as lychee nuts.  If you score around the outside of the fruit, the red, hairy exterior pops off revealing a large grape like fruit with an attached pit in the middle.  You just pop the whole thing in your mouth and eat around the stone.

Also, I had to take pictures of the Filipino Store from a little shopping center in Waikaloa.  Coming from someplace without the benefit of ethnic stores like this, browsing here was a real treat.  My mother bought some frozen lumpias here and my father was in hog heaven!

On one of my very first mornings in Hawaii, I was doing some grocery shopping as I was doing a lot of the cooking and came across these Dragonfruits.  I had never seen anything like these before.  A few days later, my mother came across some at the farmers market that were cheaper.  The ones she bought were yellow, but the same shape.  They tasted very similarly to kiwis but were less tart.  The grayish fruit with black seeds that was inside though was visually a surprise from the look of the exterior.

I can't wait to catch up on all that you have been doing over the holidays!  Don't forget that I will be hosting a read through of French Women Don't Get Fat on Friday's in January.  Our first discussion will be this coming Friday, January 2!