One Meal Becomes Three

It started with pot roast. Another slice of Zeke, the steer that Mother-In-Law sent to freezer camp shortly before Christmas.  I believe this particular piece was labeled "Blade Roast"; it came from the shoulder area anyway, with a big slice of shoulder bone in it.  If you don't have a blade roast at home I imagine a chuck roast would cook up the same. In fact, that's how I treated it--the same way I do a chuck roast.

So. . .here's how I cooked it:
I placed the roast into my big crock pot (Rival 6 qt), sprinkled it with salt and pepper, slathered it on top and any sides I could reach with a 6 ounce can of tomato paste.  Then I sliced a large onion and laid the slices on the top of the roast.  After that, I added about 1/2 cup water to the crock pot, put on the lid, and set it to 'low'.  It cooked for 8 hours, but hey, it's a crock pot, so if you need yours to go 9 or 10 hours it won't hurt anything. In fact, the meat should turn out so tender you barely even need to chew!

Later in the day, about an hour before the roast was to be served, I peeled several potatoes, quartered them, and set them on the stove to boil.  Then I took two acorn squash that had volunteered to grow in one of the flower beds (apparently an old squash seed was a surprise addition to the compost I dressed the flower bed with this spring!).  I washed the squash, then cut each one in half horizontally .  After scooping the seeds and 'guts' out of the seed cavity, I took a small slice off of each pointed end in order for the squash to sit flat in the dish I was going to cook them in.  Then I placed the four squash halves in a baking dish with the seed cavities facing up.  I seasoned each one with salt and pepper, dotted them with butter, put enough water in the bottom of the dish to measure about 1/4" deep, and covered the whole thing with foil. 

Now, you can cook the squash at different temperatures, depending on how long you want/need it to take.  I cooked mine at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, but you can turn the temperature down if you want, just add about 5 minutes of baking for every 25 degree decrease in temp.

Once the potatoes were almost done cooking, and it was nearly time to serve dinner, I took the lid off the crock pot and, with a baster, removed about a cup of meat drippings (aka "meat juice").  Those drippings I put into a skillet and added roughly a cup of water to.  Then I put a couple dashes of salt and pepper on the drippings, and turned the burner on high.  While the drippings mixture heated, I stirred together about 2-3 tablespoons of corn starch and enough water to make a runny paste.  Once the meat juice had reached a boil, I slowly poured the corn starch/water mixture into it, stirring all the time, until the juice, now gravy, reached the thickness my family likes.  When you're making gravy, it's important to stir, stir, stir, so you don't get lumps. 

After that, the potatoes were drained and mashed, the roast lifted out of the crock pot and put on a platter, the gravy poured into the gravy boat, the squash removed from the oven, and dinner was served!  YUM.

The next day, we had beef vegetable soup, which started with the rest of the meat juice from the crock pot --about 2 cups worth, maybe a bit less.  To that, I added 6 cups of water, about 2 cups diced pot roast that was leftover, and a whole bunch of veggies.  I cut up and threw in 2 stalks celery, 2 carrots, 2 potatoes, a couple of handfuls of green beans from the garden, roughly 1/2 cup each of peas and corn from the freezer.  You can add or subtract from that, using your favorite veggies or whatever you have on hand.  In retrospect, I should have thrown in a few tomatoes as I have quite a few sitting on the counter that are almost over ripe.

Anyway, the soup simmered for a couple of hours.  It turned out a bit bland; I forgot to add salt and pepper.  A beef bouillon cube wouldn't have hurt either.  Next time ;0)

This afternoon I followed my own advice (see my post Frugal Food #7: Pay Attention if you haven't yet) and when deciding what to eat for lunch I inventoried what was in the fridge.  Using a little bit of creativity, a sprinkle of daring (in case it didn't turn out to taste as good as I was imagining), and some leftovers, I came up with a new entree:  the squash and cheese wrap.

Here's what I used:
1/2 an acorn squash, leftover because DD2 didn't eat hers
1 large tortilla, leftover from burritos last week
some feta cheese
some Romano cheese
some Parmesan cheese

I'm on kind of a 'fancy' cheese kick lately:  I love what my kids have taken to calling "stinky cheese"--in other words, not the bland pale orange kind.    So I have 6+ flavors of cheese on hand at any one time, and I love experimenting with things to use them in or on.  I took that leftover piece of squash, heated it in the microwave, then mashed it (remove the skin) and spread it down the center of the tortilla.  To that, I added some freshly grated Romano and Parmesan, and a tablespoon (or maybe two) of feta.  Rolled it up like a wrap, and stuck it in the microwave for approx. 40 seconds until hot and the cheeses softened.

It was delicious!  Definitely different, but very good.  I think I'll serve Romano on squash a lot after this; they taste good together.


What started as just a pot roast dinner three days ago turned into two dinners for four, and a lunch for one.
Meal One: pot roast, mashed potatoes with gravy, baked acorn squash
Meal Two: beef vegetable soup
Meal Three: the new taste sensation squash and cheese wrap

Moral of the story:  Be creative, don't be afraid to try something new, and remember to use up those leftovers!!