Why is it that when you are trying to get something done, THAT'S when the kids don't cooperate & everything seems to go wrong all at once?
This last week has been a strange one. I'm not a great cook, but I do my best. I have my repertoire of meals that I can make fairly well that we like, & occasionally I like to step outside that box & try something new, maybe find another one to add to the list of regulars. For some reason a pork chop dish that I made last week went bust. PChad said it had some weird metallic aftertaste & so we threw it out. I had made this particular dish before & really liked it, so I figured I'd try it again this week. Once again, he said it had the same flavour. He thinks maybe I'm doing something wrong when I'm browning the chops (pan too hot? Too cold?) I couldn't say.
Yesterday I decided to make an EASY chicken & pasta dish. I've made it before & it was really good. Last time I even took it out 10 minutes too early w/o realizing it, but it was cooked perfectly. This time..... Let's just say we had to stick it back in the oven for another 20 minutes, & rather than wait for it, we had baby corn, rolls & ice cream for dinner.
Today I decided to make some stew in the crock-pot. It's a fairly easy thing to do, right? Well, I'm not hugely into soups/stews, so I've never made one before. I was doing just fine chopping the vegetables & adding them in, I got to the meat part & realized I'd have to brown the beef before I added it. JUST as it's getting to the point where you have to watch it & turn it, Chancery woke up from her nap.
I ran upstairs trying to get her to go back to sleep b/c she hadn't slept very long and I needed finish up in the kitchen. Asher opened the door & asked me something just as I got her calmed down, so I told him to go out of her room so I could put her back to sleep (all the while I'm getting a bit worried about my meat on the stove). Asher starts yelling, "Are you putting Chancery to sleep?" THEN the doorbell starts ringing.
I knew PChad was outside clearing the snow & I figured he just wanted the side door unlocked, but I was otherwise engaged at the moment...... But he persisted (apparently he had locked himself out), so I gave up on Chancery, left her in her bed (in case by some small miracle she's stop crying & drift off to sleep on her own), stopped on the stairs & told Asher he needed to be quieter, ran down, opened the door for PChad, & took my beef from the pan & dumped it in the crock-pot.
I poured the beef broth on top of the mixture, got ready to add the garlic & Worcestershire sauce & read Add broth, garlic & Worcestershire sauce to beef in pan, simmer & scrape up bits from the bottom of the pan & add to crock-pot.
So I've made a meal that in 3 hours time we'll discover if it's edible. I already warned PChad that we might be having pizza pops for dinner. I tried to console myself w/ a latte, but my espresso maker started steaming where it's not supposed to steam from & it tasted really nasty. I think if I'm left to it, we just might become vegetarians out of necessity.
Okay sweetie, I am here to rescue you from you crockpot woahs. You dont have to brown your roast first, you can just dump it into the crockpot. ( I actually take it out of the freezer and dump it in, I start out on high for an hour then go down to low) And you can add all those things to the crockpot and let it cook with the meat, so no worry about that. A good alternative is to add a package of onion soup mix to it, very tasty, or a can of beer. My favorite though is a can of mushroom soup, so it makes a nice cream sauce. So anyways hope this helps. I am a little obsessed with my crock-pot, so have tried MANY things with it.
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