Let's start with the roast that I pulled out of the freezer. Roast? What's a roast? Can you be more
specific as to what kind of meat that is?
So all good questions - and the answer is I wish I could be more specific, but sadly, I cannot.
Growing up, any large piece of meat was called a roast. My guess is that my grandfather - the butcher - didn't want to confuse us. And so whenever he would arrive, loaded down with bags from the butcher store, he would tell my mom and my aunt that he put a few roasts in the freezer.
Okay, they would say and go on their merry ways. Because really, according to my
grandfather, whom we call Zeidy, "Meat is meat. Just cook it. Okay."
Then I married Josh, who, as a five year old, already had an intimate relationship with the neighborhood butcher. Josh would accompany his mom to the butcher store and walk out with free slices of turkey. Needless to say, he was overjoyed to be marrying the granddaughter of a butcher and was then just as horrified to realize that his new family's meat knowledge was pathetic.
Since that fateful Friday afternoon when I explained that "meat is meat, you just cook it", he has been patiently trying to teach me the difference between cuts of meat, like for example, silver tip, brisket, and um, yeah, that's really I can remember. I'm not such a good student. But Josh
keeps trying. One his greatest joys is when we happen to catch an episode of
America's Test Kitchen and Chris Kimball hauls out the human sized plastic cow,
covered in lines demarcating each section of meat and labeled by name and how to
cook it. So I keep trying. Maybe one day I'll figure it out. For now, Josh knows
to be on call when I go to the supermarket so I can call home and read the names
and prices of everything in the meat case to him. Sigh.
Anyway, where was I? Right, I was cooking for Shabbos and trying to be a clean eater at the same time and well, I'm feeling very lost right now. From the label on the package, I see that the roast I pulled out of the freezer is a top of the rib. I basically have one go to recipe for all
pieces of meat - I heat my dutch oven (you can any heavy-bottomed pot that can hold the roast instead) over very high heat and sear the meat on all sides until it's brown. Then I lay the meat down in the pan, throw a bunch of sliced onions and cubed potatoes, sweet potatoes and baby carrots on top, pour a bunch of duck sauce on top, cover tightly and let it cook over a low heat
for 2 hours. It's fast, it's easy and it's delicious. Except that duck sauce is not even remotely related to eating clean. I mean, really, not even a little bit.
I (what else?) googled some variation of the words roast, meat, eating clean and recipe and didn't get too many good hits. I even added the words crock pot but nothing really came up.
Maybe people who eat clean don't really eat meat? Hmmm. I have to look into that. Either way, we're not going meatless so I needed to figure something out.
turned it to high. It's been in there for 2 hours already and smells amazing. I think I'll give it another hour and check it, but so far, as much as I can tell through the foggy class top of the crock pot, it looks pretty good.
Go me! Well, maybe I shouldn't be cheering yet, it's early still.
And in case you (hi Ma!) were wondering where Little T has been this whole time, she has taken up residence in the pop-up hamper with a few of her baby dolls. She's feeding them lego.