Herbs herbs herbs and slow cooker roast beef

Lots has been happening in my food life recently!

My husband and I ripped out all the dead stuff in our community garden plot-and even some of the still alive stuff-to get it ready for winter. We also put in 6 cubic feet of compost and stirred it in. I've now got newspaper covering half of the plot and will soon have some on the other side-I just need to be sure to buy one of those fat Sunday papers. The only plants to escape were the marigolds-which are just still too pretty to pull. Next weekend-if it doesn't rain-the garlic will go in-and we'll cover that section with straw. The moral of this story-don't harvest all your herbs at once when you live in a tiny apt with no storage space.

A few weeks ago I started the herbs:  taking up about half the basil and hanging it to dry in small bundles. I also did the rosemary and some of the oregano. It took longer than I thought it would-even with a fan constantly blowing on it-to dry.

However with the tearing out of the garden all the rest of the herbs had to go somewhere. So the mostly dry basil came down along with everything else and was replaced with the (divided) hill of flat leaf parsley. Then came the oregano. At the beginning of the season I had planted some heirloom seeds-which both my husaband and I thought weren't growing although we were getting a bunch of weeds in that spot. So, I went out and got a seedling and planted it in another section of the garden. Then we discovered all those weeds we had pulled were really baby oregano. So we had 2 plants-2 great varities although I preferred the heirloom greek-bigger tastier leaves. Turns out oregano is not easy to take apart. And 2 plants is TOO much-we have enough oregano for a decade drying in our living room. So, everyone in the family-you're getting herbs for the holidays-hope you like 'em.

So, now that we're past the herbs on to some heartier fare. We had a meeting Wed night and I knew we would need a dinner that would be easy and fast. So Tues night I started a pot roast (coated with spices, seared in a skillet, deglazed and marinated with about 1c. of red wine) and then Wed morning I stuck it in and let it cook for about 9hours on low. When I got home from work I quarted some small red potatoes, peeled and cut some carrots and cut some celery and added to the pot, and cranked it up to high for about 1.5hrs. By the time the meeting was over I had yummy pot roast, veggies, and lots of juice. I attempted to thicken the juices into gravy with corn starch slurry, but didn't have a lot of luck. In hindsight I should have taken out the juice and put it in a saucepan to thicken on the stove. I also cooked a huge (for 2 people) roast of about 4.5lbs b/c I thought I'd used the extra meat for shredded beef sandwhiches or tacos, but when we went to put it away the husband was appalled-this meat is too good to be used in that way-let's just have left overs!

Slow Cooker Pot Roast

 Notes: The spice rub can be tweaked to your desire-the one here has kind of a Morocan/eastern flavor-if you're looking for something simpler it can be as easy as salt, pepper, and maybe a little garlic powder. Your meat is going to sit in the marinating wine for upwards of 12 hours DO NOT use something you wouldn't drink-if you don't like the flavor from the bottle, you won't like what it does to you meat. If you don't want to use the alcohol (oh how I remember the days of being underage and having to discard half the recipes I wanted to make) you can use broth (3.5c beef) and a little citrus juice for acid content (.5c orange). Clean and trim the roast removing any hunks of fat. Some remaining is good though-it will help to keep the meat moist. Usually if you buy it in a supermarket this will already be done.

Spice Rub

1.5tsp each

Cinnamon

Coarse Ground Black Pepper

Cumin

Ginger

Coriander (ground)

4.5lb rump roast (beef, smaller can be used too!)

2T olive oil

6T 1:1 cornstarch/water blend

Marinade

4c red wine (I used an old red blend of primarily zinfandel grapes)

1c teriyaki sauce

2c diced tomatoes and juice (you can just use a whole can if it's after tomato season like it is here)

3 cloves garlic roughly chopped

Veggies

4 stalks celery, divided to 2.5inch pieces

3 large carrots, divided to 2.5inch pieces

5 small red potatoes, quartered

1/2 onion, quartered

Apply your spice rub to your roast rubbing it in and coating generously. About half this spice goes into the meat and the other into your broth/gravy. Heat olive oil in large skillet. Transfer spiced roast to skillet and brown deeply on all sides. Transfer roast to crock pot vessel. Deglaze skillet with 1c wine, pouring result over the roast scraping any last bits in to the vessel. Refrigerate overnight if desired.

Warm vessel slightly if it has been in the fridge (to prevent cracking) 30 min at room temp will do. Combine marinade ingredients and pour over beef. Set crock pot to lowest setting and cook for approximately 9 hours.

Remove meat from vessel, strain solids out of juices. You can shred the beef here if you like, but its really starting to fall apart on its own anyway. Return meat and strained juices to vessel. Add veggies and cook on high for about 1.5hours or until potatoes are to your desired consistency.

Remove the beef and veggies, divide for serving. If desired transfer juices to large saucepan. Bring to a simmer and add the cornstach slurry to thicken into gravy. Top beef and veggies with juice or gravy and serve.