CrockPot Pot Roast Success!

I originally saw this recipe over at my good friend's blog, Teenah's Projects.

I have not had the most success with these CrockPot recipes. Most of the time they're too salty or the chicken has a weird texture - it's always something. I had kind of sworn off the Crock unless it was a soup recipe. Not really sure what made me try this recipe, especially since it wasn't really a hit at Teenah's house, but I am glad I tried it.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 Tbsp EVOO
• Pot Roast (2-5 lbs)
• 1 Envelope Brown Gravy
• 1 Envelope Ranch Dressing (I used about half a packet)
• 1 Envelope Italian Dressing (I used about half a packet)
• Potatoes (I used red potatoes)
• Baby Carrots
• 1.5 cups water

I have never cooked a roast before and don't really do much with red meat so as I stood in the meat aisle of the store, I realized I had no clue what to buy, so I phoned a friend - or rather, my mom. We decided on a chuck roast. While talking to my mom, she said it would be better to coat the meat in flour and brown it. The original recipe doesn't say to do that, so I suppose that step is optional. 

Directions

• Heat EVOO on medium heat.
• Mix the flour and pepper and coat meat.
• Brown meat on both sides. 
• While browning the meat, put enough baby carrots to cover the bottom of the Crock. Cut up potatoes and throw them on top of the carrots. I just eyeballed the amount.
• Mix together the enveloped seasonings and sprinkle a small layer over the carrots and potatoes. 
• Place the meat on top of the carrots and potatoes and sprinkle the rest of the seasonings over the meat. 
• Pour water over meat.
• Cook on high for the 1st two hours, turning the meat over after an hour. 
• Cook on low for another 5 hours. (The original recipe says to cook on low for 6-10 hours, but I had a think chunk of meat so I turned it up a bit to ensure we weren't eating dinner at 10pm.)

I  immediately doubted that this was going to turn out, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a little bland, so perhaps I withheld too much of the Ranch and Italian seasonings, but I have had this combo before and it ended up super salty so I was hesitant to use the full amounts as suggested.

Overall it was delish and the only thing it was missing was warm French bread slathered with butter to sop up the extra sauce. I will definitely make this again when the weather gets colder. :o)

Lemon Buttercream Frosting

We recently had another good friend celebrate a six year anniversary so, of course, I wanted to bake her a cake! We asked her wife what her favorite cake was and she said lemon cake with lemon frosting. Easy enough, right? Perhaps... but this is me we're talking about. Nothing is ever easy and it's always an adventure.

I was doing this last minute so I just bought a boxed lemon cake mix and was going to make the frosting myself. My intent was to make this one, but somehow missed the frosting that was an ingredient so I didn't get any at the store. Before I even started making it, I was wondering how 2 cups of powdered sugar and a quarter cup butter was going to turn into frosting, but I have taught myself to trust the process... so I started blending the two and immediately knew my first instinct was right. So I looked at the recipe again and that was when I realized I needed frosting. It was already 11:30 at night and I didn't want to go back to the store so I improvised.

I had also pinned this recipe which I knew didn't call for frosting because it needed 3.5 cups of powdered sugar.

Ingredients

---

• 3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
• 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick) softened
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 T lemon zest (the rind of a lemon)
• 2 T lemon juice

How to make it

---

• mix the butter, lemon zest and vanilla together, making sure all the lumps are gone.
• add the milk, and quickly cream it into the butter mixture.
• by the 1/2 cup, mix in the sugar.
• once the sugar is all in the bowl, cream on "high" for two minutes. (I use this time to clean up)
• mix in lemon juice.
• spread heartily and enjoy!

Photo courtesy of Group Recipes

The other recipe only called for 1/4 cup of butter so I had to get creative in softening the other 1/4 cup of butter.

Then I got to the part with milk and ours was a little expired. I happened to have a can of  Sweetened Condensed Milk so I threw in a quarter cup of that, but it was too thick. I don't think I have ever worked with Sweetened Condensed Milk before - it was not what I was expecting. I didn't want to keep adding that so I said screw it and added a quarter cup of the couple day old milk, crossing my fingers that it wasn't bad. None of us got sick and it got rave reviews! Whew!

From Caltrans to California Highway Patrol

It's really starting to sink in that my days at my current job with Caltrans are limited. I am filled with gratitude and nostalgia, have a little sadness, and am bubbling with excitement.

I moved down to Southern California in November of 2009 and started working for Caltrans in January of 2010. It's really the only job I have known since moving down here and the people here are definitely the only work family I have had since leaving Sacramento.

Me and my boss at a 1960's themed meeting.

My first boss was and is amazing! He's like a big brother to me. It only took a few days for us to both realize we were going to work well together. We both fall under the Aquarius sign, our birthdays just days from each other. We love to eat... you want something from that guy? Give him food (preferably something chocolate) and you'll get what you need. We have a similar sense of humor and our minds work eerily the same - several thoughts going on at once, the mind rarely quiet. And we get each others sensitivity. He's a very sweet and sensitive guy, oblivious to most things, but pays attention when it's important (particularly when you'd prefer he not pay attention because you don't want to have to explain why it looks like you've been crying because that will just make you cry more.) He made my job joyful... When I worked for him, I didn't wake up every day dreading going to work and battling with myself to get up and go - I just got up and went without thinking about it because he was that great.

I'm not sure he knows what a gift he truly was to me. When I first started working for him, I had just spent the last three years in an extremely unhealthy relationship and had just left a supervisor that despised me and my work. My self confidence was nearly non-existent. He immediately saw my potential, entrusted me with important tasks, allowed me to make decisions, and slowly rebuilt my confidence. I am forever grateful to him for that and will definitely miss his charisma and his ability to smile no matter how high the shit is piled.

The Core Family

Don't worry, I wont bore you with mushy stories about each of those people, but Caltrans has been good to me. Sure, it wasn't rainbows and sunshine every day, but I enjoyed working here and the people were incredibly kind. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to work for Caltrans and the be a part of the Caltrans Family. I mean, how many people get to say they got to be Cone Kid for their job?

Now, it's time for me to leave the nest. I am sooooo excited for my next adventure. I am moving on to the California Highway Patrol and will be working as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. I have been wanting to get this position for several years and it's finally happened! I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am for this new adventure. I really hope that I will love it as much as I think I will. And who knows, maybe I will get to be Chipper one day!

UPDATE: I came into work today and this is why I will miss my Caltrans family so much.

Congratulations!

The whole view.

The best part!

Banana Cookies

K and I have an overabundant amount of borderline rotten bananas in our freezer. I'm not sure how that happens. We have the best of intentions of eating the bananas and then next thing you know, they're all black and we just throw them in the freezer knowing we'll eventually make some banana bread or banana cake.

The other day, I was thinking about it and there are all kinds of banana recipes out there, but I couldn't recall ever seeing a banana cookie recipe. So I went on a mission to find one and came across this one. It claims to be a 70 year old recipe and that was in 2008... so it must be a 74 year old recipe by now. Well, it was an honor to get to try a recipe of such age!

The Recipe:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 1 cup of mashed bananas (about 2 ½ large bananas)
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 2 cups of flour
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground mace or nutmeg I used mace because I'm not a fan of nutmeg, but they're actually quite similar.
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves
• 1 cup of pecans (walnuts and chocolate chips are fine alternatives) 

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.
2. In a bowl, mix the mashed bananas and baking soda. Let sit for 2 minutes. The baking soda will react with the acid in the bananas which in turn will give the cookies their lift and rise. 
3. Mix the banana mixture into the butter mixture. Mix together the flour, salt, and spices and sift into the butter and banana mixture and mix until just combined.
4. Fold into the batter the pecans or chocolate chips if using. Drop in dollops onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until nicely golden brown. Let cool on wire racks.

Makes about 30 cookies.

I didn't have a full bag of chocolate chips so I added them to the last batch and what a difference they made!! The cookies are delicious without them, so don't worry if you don't have any.

 

Pear Crisp & a Little Blog Bashing

Who needs food staging when you discover Instagram?

Our friends have many fruit trees in their back yard and the other day K came home from their house with a bunch of pears. I knew we wouldn't eat all of them so I went on a mission to find a recipe for a Pear Crisp. The winning recipe came from The Pioneer Woman blog. It also helped that I had all the ingredients on hand!

The Recipe:

FILLING INGREDIENTS:

• 4 whole (to 5) Large Pears (Bosc Work Well) (I don't even know what a Bosc pear is.)
• 2/3 cups Sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt

TOPPING INGREDIENTS

• 1-1/2 cup All-purpose Flour
• 1/3 cup Sugar
• 1/3 cup Firmly Packed Brown Sugar (So what that a little extra fell in the bowl when I was getting it into the measuring cup. It didn't hurt anybody.)
• 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/2 cup Pecans, Very Finely Chopped (I don't love nuts so I used 1/2 cup of  Quaker Oats)
• 1 stick Butter, Melted

Preparation Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Peel the pears (I didn't do this because my hands give me issues and they kept cramping when I was trying to peel them) 
• Core, and dice pears. 
• Place into a bowl and stir together with 2/3 cup sugar (I'm not 100% positive all that sugar is necessary - keep reading) and 1/4 teaspoon salt. 
• Set aside.

• In a separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans. Stir together. Drizzle melted butter gradually, stirring with a fork as you go until all combined.
• Pour pears into a baking dish. (I used a 9x9 Pyrex)
• Top with crumb topping.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
• Place pan on top rack of oven for an additional 10 minutes, or until topping is golden brown. (I didn't do this last step. I baked it for the 30 minutes on the second to top rack and after the 30 minutes, the topping looked golden brown to me so I skipped the extra 10 minutes on the top rack.)

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream. (I absolutely did this!)

So, this is where the blog bashing begins. I think some of these food bloggers aren't always 100% honest. At least this is what I have started telling myself to make me feel better when a recipe doesn't turn out absolutely perfect like the food blog makes it seem. Haha.


My Crisp was crisp, but it was a little (ok, probably more like a lot) soupy underneath. Maybe soupy wasn't the right word because it didn't really ruin the dish, but there was a lot of juice on the bottom that the blog never mentioned. I suspect it might have been from the 2/3 cups of sugar I mentioned earlier that I thought it might not have been necessary to use quite that much. Maybe less sugar would have produced less juice.

Also, I thought the pears would cook more like apples. When you bake apples, they tend to soften - pears do not. Out of the five I cut up, only two were ripe enough to be soft. The others went in the oven hard, and came out of the oven hard. Not rock hard, of course, but definitely not soft like I was thinking they would come out.

Overall, it was good. Would I rush out and buy more pears so I can make it again? Probably not, but if someone were to give us a bunch of pears again, I'd make it again.

Now for a little more blog bashing:

I give myself such a hard time because my pictures don't look as good as "real" food bloggers. Granted, I just discovered Instagram and that seems to help (see demo below), but I don't think I would ever spend the time and energy trying to stage food the way real food bloggers do it. Kudos to them for putting in the effort, though. So, if you're a reader of my blog - you will get crappy pictures, but you will get honest truths about cheffing mishaps, recipe mishaps, and overall reviews. Granted, I wont blog the total disasters (unless it comes with a funny story), but I will give my honest opinion about my recipes. I mean, c'mon, do you really think that every single recipe food bloggers blog turns out amazing and tastes spectacular? I doubt it.

A real food blogger's photo.

My photo before Instagram

My photo after Instagram

 OK, maybe the Instagram doesn't help as much as I thought it did. Well, at least it makes it look like I tried.

What do you think of the new Bon Appetit?