One of my favorites childhood memories of Sunday Supper was sitting around the huge family table and having Roast, potatoes, carrots and gravy. It was such a comforting meal, our family had it often on Sundays. Growing up, my grandmother made it in the oven and the amazing aroma in the house made you drool with anticipation of a great comforting meal.

I’ve been know to make a Sunday roast or two in the oven but now my preferred method of cooking it is in the crock pot. I can chop and prepare all the ingredients the night before, put the crock pot in the fridge and it’s ready to go Sunday morning when I’m ready to pull it out and cook it. Of course having Roast for dinner is not just for Sundays. That’s the wonderful thing about cooking it in the crock pot. You can make a Roast any day of the week with a crock pot.

I usually only buy roasts on rare occasions unless I can find a good deal like the BOGO (Buy One Get One FREE) meat sale Raley’s has from time to time or in this case, I used my Raley’s Rewards to purchase two roasts. This was a great deal because the roasts were on sale too.

Perfect Crock Pot Roast

Ingredients:

• Roast (large enough to feed your family–but always think ahead for leftovers for future meal ideas)
• 1 onion (I prefer yellow)
• potatoes, (enough for your family)
• carrots (enough for your family)
• 1 Tablespoon (brown gravy mix–homemade recipe sharing later)
• 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste
• mushrooms (optional–I had a few on hand in the fridge)

Directions:

1. Peel your potatoes and carrots.  Slice your potatoes in half then into fourths.  We like ours cut into chunks but others prefer lengthwise.
2. Now, slice your carrots.  We slice the carrots the same way we do the potatoes. This helps cook all the vegetables evenly.
3.  Place the carrots and potatoes into the crock-pot.  Lightly salt & pepper them.  Add in 1/4 cup water.
4. Place your roast on top of the vegetables. Add the 1 Tablespoon gravy mix and sprinkle on top of roast. Pour the Worcestershire sauce over the gravy.  It is okay if some of the dry gravy remains.  As the roast cooks, it will liquefy.
5. Salt & pepper the roast.
6. Finally, peel the onion and cut it in half.  Take 3-4 outer layer sections and lay across the roast for flavor.
7. Put the lid on the crock-pot and cook on low over night (8-10 hours).
8. Optional: You can use the liquid from the roast at the bottom of the crock pot to make a wonderful gravy.

 

Now doesn’t this look delicious!

Recipe Note: **Leftovers will be added to Tuesday night’s meal.

It’s been a long time since I truly sat down to watch a football game. Since High School in fact. I was a die hard Raider fan. I know, I know but I’ve always liked them. My husband doesn’t usually watch football routinelyeither (since I’ve known him) but he’s a 49ners fan. And because they were in the Super Bowl both he and our 12 year old son sat down for some male bonding time. So for dinner, I thought this fun dish might be appropriate. I originally was going to make this in a baking dish but since it was the Super Bowl, I wanted to make a finger food dish.  Either way you make it, it will taste good!

Ingredients:

• 1 pound Ground Beef
• 1 small onion diced
• 1-2 cups of BBQ Sauce (use as much as you like)
• 1/2 of a large green pepper pepper diced
• 1/2 cup of chopped sweet potatoes (I used canned–great way to sneak this vegetable in )
• 2 1/4 cups of Homemade Baking Mix (another frugal recipe sharing  soon)
• 2/3 cup of Milk
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450°
2. Add beef and onion to skillet and cook until done.
3. Lower heat to simmer and mix in BBQ sauce, green pepper and sweet potato.
4. Mix baking mix and milk in a bowl.
5. Drop a spoonful of dough into a muffin tin. Repeat until you’ve used all the dough.
6. Bake biscuits for about 2 minutes, then take out of oven and add a large spoonful of the meat mixture to each muffin tin on top of the biscuit dough. Press the spoon down making a little cup for the mix.
7. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake for another 8-10 minutes.

Today, I’m sharing another family favorite recipe…it’s a Homemade Pasty Recipe. They are amazingly good and a perfect recipe choice if you’re looking to stock your freezer with some pre-made meals for your family.

 

 

Makes: 8

Ingredients:

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 4 carrots, grated
• 4 potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1 large onion, peeled and diced
• salt and pepper
• 1 box rolled pie crusts (usually 2 per box)
• 4 Tablespoons butter
• ice water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add the ground beef. Chop ends of carrots off and clean. Grate carrots on a cutting board and add to bowl with the meat.
3. Peel all potatoes and chop them up into fine squares. Add potatoes to the bowl with the ground beef and carrots.
4. Take the skin off the onion and dice into tiny squares. Add to the ground beef mixture.
5. Add as much salt and pepper to your liking to the mixture.
6. With clean hands, mix ingredients by hand until all ingredients are evenly mixed.
7. On a lightly floured cutting board, roll out one pie crust. With a knife, slice the pie crust down the middle. (Each pie crust will give to two good size pasties).
8. Place one cup of beef mixture in the middle of one half of pie crust. Push filling down and shape it so that it all stays together. Add a small amount of butter, about half a Tablespoon on top.
9. Fold the pie crust over so it looks like your’re making a little pocket. This is also where a little ice water comes in handy. Using your fingertips, wet the sides then push down the pastry. This helps seal and make a pie type edge on it. Push down and fold the sides if you can. 
10. Repeat with remaining pie crusts until all beef mixture is gone. Carefully place each pasty on an ungreased cooking sheet. Using a sharp knife make five slits on top of each pasty. 
11.  Place in preheated oven and cook for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve for dinner or if you are freezing, allow to cool and store in freezer zip-loc bags. (If you are freezing, I let cool then place entire cookie sheet with pasty in the freezer for 15 minutes. This allows them to firm up a bit so they are not so fragile when putting them in the zip-loc bags).

My family loves burgers, but we also love having burger sandwiches on regular whole wheat sandwich bread.

On this week’s simple suppers menu, I’m serving these Onion Burger Sandwiches with Creamy Salsa and a side of Mexican Rice instead of the usual french fries or homemade potato fries. It’s nice to change up your meals once in a while.

Oh, and before I forget, this recipe uses my Homemade Dry Onion Soup Mix and these sandwiches couldn’t be more simple to make.

Onion Burger Sandwich with Creamy Salsa

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds ground beef
• 3 Tablespoons Homemade Dry Onion Soup Mix
• 1/2 cup light mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup chunky salsa, drained
• wheat bread slices

This past week was the Rib Cook Off at Victorian Square in Sparks, Nevada. We’ve never been to the cook off before and thought it sounded like a lot of fun and a chance to have some really good BBQ. So we headed up on Saturday. The drive up highway 80 was what we expected for a 3-day holiday weekend…busy.

Parking at the Nugget was a bit challenging if you didn’t arrive early.  The traffic was understandably heavy and roads were blocked off.  The signs for all the parking lots were full.  After driving around for 10 minutes, we were lucky enough to find a parking space, parked and went in search of RIBS!  We didn’t have to go very far.

On the street we’re immediately overwhelmed with smoke from all the barbecues. Ahhh….we breathed deeply and enjoyed the smells.  Of course in order to get to those great smells, we had to take a journey through a few rows of vendors.

Just look at those BBQ turkey drums we found….