Adventures in Cooking

I have been in a major cooking rut lately. I think it is part of the reason we tend to eat out more than we should. Lately Ryan and I have been watching a lot of Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Chanel (re-runs were getting old!). If you have never seen his show it is worth a watch. He can be pretty snarky and sarcastic, but he goes to interesting places and goes out of his way to meet and experience the "real" world (not the tourist hotspots). He is also a major foodie and the majority of the show focuses on the countries food and culture - but in truth food has got to be the biggest part of most cultures. I am inspired by this show to experiment with some new ideas.

The other day I was flipping through a magazine and bam I found 4 recipes right off the bat that actually sounded good and not to time consuming to make. The first one I tried was called New Mexican Style Pot Roast.

Now me being me cannot cook without a little tinkering so I have modified this from the original recipe. For instance the orginal recipe's cooking instructions were for using an the oven and cooking the meat for about 3 hours, I have no desire to sit around and do that so I crock potted it - probably used a little more beef broth/beer than was called for. Also the recipe called for squash - Ryan refused to even try it if I put squash in it so I omitted that. I did add (what a surprise!): onion, bell pepper, celery and carrots. And of course after enjoying our meal we have some more tweaking changes to make - I listed those after the recipe below.

New Mexican Style Pot Roast - ala Sarah

2.5 lb roast (salt/pepper/garlic powder to taste)
15 oz of red enchilada sauce
1 bottle of beer (I used an Amber Ale)
beef broth (enough to get the roast covered after the enchilada sauce and beer are added

I cooked the roast in the crock pot with the above mentioned ingredients on low all day

About 2.5 hours before serving I added to the crock pot (and turned it on high)

an onion
a green bell pepper
2 sweet potatos
celery (a couple of stalks)
carrots (several)
1 can of hominy

Result: YUMMO!!!!!!!

I will make this again - upon Mr. "I will not eat a sweet potatos" request I will add in a couple of red potatos and probably reduce to one sweet.

We both love hominy so I will put another can of that in
I also think ancho pepper would be good

When you open the pot to add the veggies - taste the sauce and add black pepper, red pepper and cayenne pepper to taste. I didn't do this and it was a tad bland - but we love spice!

I am going to try the other two recipes I found in the coming weeks. My goal is something new each week and to update on how it goes.

Bon Apetit!