Italian Pot Roast

***Pot roast is one of those comforting, yummy meals that you look forward to on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Growing up, my Mom always made a traditional pot roast. You know...roast, potatoes, carrots, onions...slowly cooked in a Crock Pot all afternoon long. So good! I've never even thought to cook a pot roast any other way until opening the recent "The Best of America's Test Kitchens - Best Recipes and Reviews 2008." There it was...Italian Pot Roast a.k.a. stracotto. I never would have thought to put this twist on a roast, but let me just tell you...it was probably the best pot roast I've ever had. It's absolutely PACKED with flavor, and the meat is so tender that it just melts in your mouth. It was such a nice change from what I'm used to. Don't get me wrong, I still love our traditional roast, but this one has earned a spot on my favorites list. I will no doubt be making this recipe for years to come!***

Italian Pot Roast

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:
1 boneless chuck-eye roast (3.5 - 4 pounds)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
1 pound cremini or white mushrooms, quartered
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 (14.5- ounce) can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup tomato sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup red wine
1 large garlic heat, outer papery skins removed, then halved
1 large sprig fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh rosemary

Directions:
Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Pat the roast dry with paper towels and season with salt & pepper.

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Brown the roast on all sides, 8 to 12 minutes. Transfer the roast to a large plate. Reduce the heat to medium and cook the onions, celery, mushrooms, and tomato paste until the vegetables begin to soften, about 8 minutes. Add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, sugar, water, 1/2 of the wine, garlic and thyme. Return the roast and the accumulated juices to the pot and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Place a piece of foil over the pot, cover with the lid and transfer the pot to the oven.

Cook until the roast is just fork-tender, 2.5 to 3.5 hours, flipping the roast after 1 hour. Uncover the pot and let the roast rest in its juices for 30 minutes, skimming the surface fat after 20 minutes. Transfer the roast to a carving board and tent with foil. Remove and reserve the garlic head and skim the remaining fat from the pot. Add the remaining 1/2 cup wine to the pot, bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and cook until the sauced begins to thicken, about 12 minutes.
Meanwhile, carefully squeeze the garlic from the halves and mash into a paste. Add the rosemary to the pot and simmer until fragrant, about 2 minutes.

Remove the rosemary and thyme springs, stir in the mashed garlic, and season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste. Cut the meat against the grain into 1/2 inch thick slices, or pull it apart into large pieces.

Source: The Best of America's Test Kitchens - Best Recipes and Reviews 2008

Roasted Fresh Asparagus with Hazelnut Butter

***Here's another great recipe from my new Biltmore Estate cookbook. One of our favorite veggies is fresh asparagus, so selecting this recipe from the book was a no-brainer. I also just so happened to have the Frangelico from the Giandua Souffle that I made a while back. It was delicious...and we have most of the Hazelnut Butter left over to add to other dishes. It would be good added to something like mashed potatoes. YUM!***


Roasted Fresh Asparagus
Ingredients:
1 lb. green asparagus, trimmed and peeled
2 tbsp. EVOO
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. pepper
3 tbsp. Hazelnut Butter (below)



Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Toss the asparagus with the olive oil, lemon juice, kosher salt and pepper in a bowl, coating well. Spread on a baking sheet and roast for 10 minutes or until tender. Serve with the Hazelnut Butter.

***************************************************


Hazelnut Butter
Ingredients:
1/3 cup crushed toasted hazelnuts
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 tbsp. minced shallot
2 tbsp. chopped parsley
1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. Frangelico Hazelnut Liquer
1 tbsp. honey
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. pepper

Directions:
Combine the hazelnuts with the butter, shallot, parsley and lemon zest in the bowl of a small tabletop mixer. Add the lemon juice, liquer, honey, kosher salt and pepper. Beat at low speed with a paddle attachment until well mixed, scraping the side of the bowl occasionally.

Shape into a log about 1 inch in diameter on plastic wrap or baking parchment. Wrap and chill until firm. Cut into 1/4-inch slices to serve.

Source: "Biltmore - Our Table to Yours - Chef's Selection Cookbook"

Live, Eat, Shop, REUSE

"Would you like paper or plastic?"

"Umm...neither!" has been my answer recently. One day as I was patiently waiting for the cashier to scan my goodies at The Fresh Market, I spied a trendy looking, reusable grocery bag. I mean, how smart is that? I quickly snatched one up and added it to my loot. At under $1, it was a bargain. Plus, who could resist the cute carrot graphic on the front? Now I wish that I had bought more, because the particular Fresh Market that I frequent hasn't gotten anymore in.

After some additional research, I found out exactly how bad plastic bags are for the environment. I've always been one to recycle, especially after purchasing our first home and having the option to put a recycling bin next to the curb every Sunday night. I have no excuse now...just toss the assorted cola cans, plastic bottles, cereal boxes, etc. in a bin and someone comes to collect the contents every week. It makes me feel good to do a little something extra for the environment. It may not be much, but all the little acts people do add up!!!

The purpose of this post is to try to persuade you to buy a reusable grocery bag...or two, or three, or ten!...and use them!

One problem I have is simply remembering to take the bag with me. I've solved this problem by keeping it in the back of my car (most of the time). I've found that even though it has a Fresh Market logo on it, other grocery stores don't seem to mind. In fact, the bag boy at Winn-Dixie made the comment the other day that he wished more people would use them. Apparently they make it easier to bag all the items.

So why not? Why not buy a reusable grocery bag? I really can't think of a good reason. Mine folds easily and fits right down into my purse. I pull it out at the register and say "fit as much as you can in it!" I need to buy a few more...that's definitely on my to-do list. After all, I only have one. The Fresh Market is supposedly going to get some new bags in stock with sunflowers on them...let's hope those come in soon!

Did you know:

* The average American uses between 300 and 700 plastic bags per year.

* Each time you use a reuseable grocery bag, you save 4 plastic bags, on average!

* Single-use bags made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) are the main culprit. Once brought into existence to tote your purchases, they'll accumulate and persist on our planet for up to 1,000 years.

Photo courtesy of www.reusablebags.com

The following is from http://www.green-kits.com/paperorplastic.html:

Why Use Cloth Shopping Bags?

- Plastic bags, first introduced in 1977, now account for four out of every five bags handed out at grocery stores.

- Plastic bags tend to "fly away" out of cars, trashcans, and landfills, littering our roadways, land and sea. In fact, did you know that plastic bags are the fifth most collected item during coastal clean-ups? Yuck.

- Most plastic bags are made from polyethylene, which is made from crude oil and natural gas, nonrenewable resources. The US alone uses about 12 million barrels of oil every year just to keep up with the demand for plastic bags (current annual demand tops out at about 100 billion bags).

Photo courtesy of www.reusablebags.com

Sounds like paper bags are the favored option, right? Read on:

- The US will cut down 14 million trees each year to satisfy our demand for paper grocery bags.

- 2000 plastic bags weigh 30 pounds while 2000 paper bags weigh 280 pounds. So it requires a lot more fossil fuel to transport paper.

- In the landfill, paper bags generate 70 percent more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.

- It takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag.

- Energy required to produce bags (in British thermal units): Plastic bags: 594 BTU; Paper bags: 2511 BTU.

- Research from the year 2000 shows 20 percent of paper bags were recycled, while one percent of plastic bags were recycled. Quite frankly, both of these numbers stink.

Photo courtesy of www.reusablebags.com

- Current research demonstrates that paper in today's landfills does not degrade or break down at a substantially faster rate than plastic does. In fact, a lack of water, light, oxygen, and other elements that are necessary for the degradation process inhibit complete degradability.

Statistics from http://www.epa.gov/

"Using reusable grocery bags is simple. It's easy to "BYOB"; keep a few cloth grocery bags in your car and a few by the front door. Just one cloth bag, during the course of its long and prosperous lifetime, will eliminate the need for more than 1000 plastic bags!

So just think how many trees and resources you'll save by utilizing just one bag let alone a four-pack of them.While any old bag will do to help stop the unnecessary waste of disposable grocery bags, utilizing tote bags made from 100% cotton, a renewable resource, is best. There are many reusable cloth bag options available, including recycled cotton, organic cotton, and natural hemp. But experts agree that using any reusable cloth grocery bag will do the trick."

Photo courtesy of www.reusablebags.com

Helpful links:

http://www.thedailygreen.com/going-green/

http://www.reusablebags.com/

http://store.chicobag.com/

http://www.green-kits.com/

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/

http://www.thegreenguide.com/

Time for a Fiesta!

Hola! I just wanted to share a photo from our Cinco de Mayo celebration. I know, I know...you're probably thinking "But that was a month ago!" It turned out to be quite the fiesta...we had friends, food, and even Mexican music playing in the background. After the party, I got to thinking that it would be fun to have some sort of themed night maybe once a month. Maybe we can host an Italian themed dinner next...who knows?

I took this picture with every intention of posting it the next day, but somehow it managed to get lost among a bevy of other food shots. So here it is!


Our menu consisted of the following:
1. Authentic Beef Enchiladas
2. Nacho Spuds
3. Fresh Pico de Gallo
4. Homemade Tortilla Chips
5. We washed everything down with margaritas and Corona =)


Recipes for the first 4 dishes are already included in this blog.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries and Peanut Clusters!

Some of our best friends recently invited us over for dinner. I offered to bring the dessert...my favorite part of any meal. ;)

So, I racked my brain and raided the pantry. I had chocolate (a pantry staple around our house), fresh strawberries, and roasted peanuts. Perfect! I ended up making chocolate covered strawberries drizzled with white chocolate. I also whipped up some peanut clusters. Easy and delish!!!

For the peanut clusters, I simply melted some chocolate over a double boiler, mixed in the peanuts, and dipped a spoonful of the mixture onto wax paper to cool.