Easy Crock-Pot Beef Roast

A tender beef roast is one of my favorite comfort foods.  I remember being SO excited when my mom would bring out a roast with carrots and potatoes!  My brother and I ate as many of the carrots as we could - my poor parents probably never got any.  I guess that's the plight of the parent...if your kids are excited about eating carrots...you let them eat all the carrots.

This past weekend, we made a roast while Travis' parents were in town.  Now that I'm involved in the cookin', it's important for the preparation to be quick (since we have Owen).  That's why the Crock-Pot is your best friend.

This roast takes about 10 minutes to prep (it's all "open and dump") and 5 hours to cook.  Can't get much easier than that!

Ingredients

Beef roast
1 pound baby carrots
18 ounces sliced mushrooms
Large onion, chopped
Large red pepper, chopped
2 pouches Lipton dry onion soup mix
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup (10.5 ounces)
1 can Cream of Onion soup (10.5 ounces)
1-2 cans water (use empty soup cans), depending on how much you need
Salt & Pepper


Directions

Place beef roast in bottom of Crock-Pot.
Add carrots, sliced mushrooms, chopped onion, and chopped red pepper.
Add Cream of Mushroom and Cream of Onion Soups.
Sprinkle in 2 pouches of dry onion soup mix, salt and pepper.
Pour in 1-2 cans of water, depending on how much liquid you need.  (Start with one and see if more is needed later.)
Cook on high for 5 hours or until beef is cooked through.
If serving directly from Crock-Pot, cut beef into slices and return to pot.


We served ours with half a baked potato (it's yummy to spoon over the potato!) and broccoli!

Enjoy!

Crock Pot Salsa Chicken - 2 Ingredients!

Husband and I love Mexican food.  I love to make it at home, but I especially enjoy a night out at a great restaurant.  I'm pretty predictable when we eat Mexican - I'm either going to get a Chicken Chimichanga (no rice or beans), or a taco salad.  They're my favorites!

I've always wondered howwww they get their chicken to be so delicious and tender...and now I've figured out how to replicate it at home.  AND it's the easiest thing you could make - it takes two ingredients, and you do it in the crock pot!  It's a fantastic "meat base" for any Mexican dish.  Add it to a salad, use it to fill burritos or enchiladas, or top nachos...whatever you want!  It's called Salsa Chicken, and I first saw this idea on a past coworker's blog, SarahFit.  Here's what you need...

Ingredients
3.5 pounds chicken (breasts or tenders)
2.5 cups your favorite salsa (I use a peach mango salsa)

Directions
Combine chicken and salsa in a crock pot, and cook on low for 6-8 hours (or 4+ on high).  Halfway through, chicken will be "fall apart" tender.  Remove chicken from crock pot and shred with a fork.  Return chicken to crock pot, mix with salsa, and continue cooking as long as you'd like.  Depending on what salsa you use, you may want to add a little salt at this point.

This is a fantastic base for any Mexican recipe - we made fajitas and taco salads, but you could also make nachos with this salsa chicken!

Salsa Chicken Fajitas - Saute one onion an orange pepper in a little olive oil.  Spread light sour cream on the center of a large wrap.  Place a heaping half cup of salsa chicken on top of the sour cream, then a half cup of onions/peppers.  Finally, add a few diced tomatoes and some shredded cheese.

Taco Salad - A slight variation of my regular taco salad (check it out!).  Layer lettuce, broccoli slaw, diced tomato, refried beans, salsa chicken, shredded cheese, and sour cream.

Nachos with Salsa Chicken - Layer tortilla chips, shredded cheese, salsa, black olives, and salsa chicken on an oven-safe dish.  Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or just until cheese melts.  Top with guacamole and/or sour cream and serve!

Spicy Eye Round

There's not much better than a meal from a crock pot, and Southern Living's Spicy Eye Round is one of the yummiest recipes ever.  When this cut of meat goes on sale at Costco, I usually reach for this or the 3 Ingredient Roast recipe - neither will disappoint.

If you know me, you'll understand that "Spicy" in the recipe title doesn't indicate heat, but rather that there are spices in the marinade.  If there's too much pepper on something my lips burn, so don't worry - this won't smoke you out!

Ingredients
3- 5 pound eye round roast
2 large onions, sliced
Marinade/Sauce

Marinade Recipe
2 cups ketchup
2 cups water
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 T worcestershire sauce
1 t dry mustard
1 t dried oregano
1 t pepper
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t chili powder
1/2 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground nutmeg

Directions

Stir together all marinade ingredients.  Place roast in crock pot and add marinade and sliced onions.

Cook on high in slow cooker for 4-6 hours or until VERY tender.  Slice meat and return to sauce before serving.

Enjoy!

3 Ingredient Pot Roast

One of my "back-pocket" recipes is a three ingredient roast.  If three ingredients aren't easy enough...it's also made in the crock pot!

Ingredients

Beef or Pork Roast
1-1.5 20 ounce bottles Pepsi
2-3 bottles BBQ Sauce

Directions

For this recipe, you can either use a pork or beef roast.  Hubby's favorite is the beef, so that's what we usually end up going with.

Put your meat in the crock pot.  Pour 2 bottles of BBQ sauce over meat.  Pour in one 20 ounce bottles of Pepsi and stir.

Depending on how large the beef/pork you're using is, you might wish to add more BBQ sauce and Pepsi.  Just make sure to add these in a 2:1 ratio!

Cook 8-10 hours on low or 4-5 hours on high (or until done).

Slice and serve!  I like to fill a gravy boat with the sauce for you to pour over your meet while eating.  SO good!

Do you have any favorite recipes that only use a few ingredients?

Crock Pot Applesauce

While on vacation this past week, we stopped at Bartlett’s Orchard outside of Pittsfield, MA.  Sadly, apple picking season was over (boo), but they still had goods for sale!  My friend Bailey (who grew up in Pittsfield) said  Bartlett’s was a "must" because of their apple cider donuts…and OMG…they were amazing. Being from the south, I’d never had a cider donut before moving up here – it’s something the south needs to adopt ASAP!  A-mazing.  We also bought some apples from their store so I could make applesauce when we got home.

I decided that Monday night was the perfect time to whip it up, since we’d need something sweet to take the bad taste out of our mouths from the debate...har-har-har.  Here’s a super simple (but delicious) recipe you make in the crock pot!  I used a mixture of Jonagold, Northern Spy, and Gala apples.  It’s fun to experiment with lots of different varieties.

Crock Pot Applesauce

10-12 apples

¼ cup water

½ cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Start by peeling, coring and slicing your apples.  There are a number of tools to help make this easier, but my favorite is by far is a combo tool that does all three of those at once – a peeler, corer,slicer.  I found this one at a store a few years ago for $6 and it’s been one of my favorite gadgets ever since!

Mix apples, water, brown sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice to your crock pot and cook on high for 3-4 hours, stirring periodically.  Note that the amount of sugar you use will depend on what apples you use (sweeter apples, less sugar!), and your individual taste.  Taste after cooking for a few hours and then decide if you want to add anything else.

After 3.5 hours I turned off the crock pot and fired up my handheld mixer to finish the sauce.  That way, you control the chunky/sauce ratio.  Travis is a fan of “super-fine” applesauce, so that’s what we did this time!.

Here's the finished product - so yummy.  Enjoy it warm shortly after you remove from the crock pot or refrigerate overnight and eat it cool!