Pot Roast and Honey Beer Bread

I got a slow cooker for my 21st birthday.  You heard that right, a slow cooker.  And I love it.  I broke it in with a vat of queso (it holds six quarts, so that can be considered a vat, right?), and I have expanded its experience now with a pot roast.  I made this great honey beer bread that I found on Reddit to go with it, which made the meal even better. 

For the pot roast, I used a 3 pound roast and boy was it the most meat I think I've ever purchased in one trip to Kroger - ever!  I realized I usually buy fish or sausage, but rarely beef.

After waking up at 8:00 to start, I began by chopping onions and quickly browning them with a few cloves of garlic in about 1 tbsp of olive oil.  I don't usually smell onions that early in the morning, but boy did that smell good.  The onions don't need to brown for long, just enough to get a bit crisp on the edge, maybe 2 minutes for each side of the ring on medium high heat.

I turned my slow cooker on high and added the slightly cooked onions and garlic along with a bit of butter.  Because it wasn't warm yet, I cut the butter and tried to distribute it evenly along the bottom of the slow cooker.

Next: the meat.  Using the same pan as the onions, I seared the salted and peppered roast on all sides.

I threw that on top of the onions and added 1/2 bag of baby carrots, two really big potatoes, 4 cups of beef stock and parsley and oregano.  The reason I started so early?  I had a 9:30 am class, and I wanted to get it started so it could sit for a while.

When I got home, it was cooking away.  And right before we ate?  Yum!

The meat was falling apart and it tasted (in my opinion) just like a roast should.  Here's the recipe (adapted from Pioneer Woman):

2 onions, cut into rings
3 cloves garlic
3 tbsp olive oil
3 lb roast
1 1/2 cups baby carrots
4 cups beef broth
 1 lb potatoes
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
parsley and oregano, to taste

Begin by browning the onions and garlic in a large pan in 2 tbsp olive oil.  Add onions and garlic to 2 tbsp butter in crock pot on high.  Salt and pepper roast, adding it and and addition tbsp of olive oil in pan used for onions.  After searing roast on all sides, add to crock pot along with potatoes, baby carrots, and broth.  Season to taste.  Wait at least 7 hours (8 or 9) is preferable and serve, pulling meat apart with a fork.

But what to have with this wonderful roast?  Something hearty, to be sure.  This great Honey Beer Bread, adapted from Kirbie's Kitchen, is so delicious as a side, and I'm ready to try it out as toast tomorrow!

My favorite thing about it?  No waiting for anything to rise.  It's like 5 minutes of work, 5 minutes of cleanup, 50 minutes in the oven, and done.  Perfect to go with the easy crock pot meal!

Combining dry ingredients (just flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder) is really the most complex step.  I promise.  You do want to do it in a large enough bowl, though.

Next is the best part: the beer!  I chose to use a Sam Adams Boston Lager.  You can really use anything you have around, I think it'd probably taste like light beer if you use light beer, so use those with caution.  Unless you like light beer or something... then more power to you!

You're going to add the whole bottle to your dry ingredients along with 2 tbsp of warm honey.  For the honey, if you have a plastic container, you really only need to nuke it for 5 seconds to get it runny enough.  Trust me, the first time I did it I put it in for 15 and the honey got HOT.

So after you've added your bottle of beer (minus a sip or two if you're me), then mix your ingredients until they're just combined.  Add two tbsp of melted butter to the bottom of a 9" by 5" loaf pan and another two tablespoons to the top.  Sprinkle coarse salt on top, and pop it in the oven for 50 minutes or so.

 Yeah, it's a lot of butter on top and bottom.  But it makes a difference.  I'd never made break in a loaf pan like this before and thought I could omit it, but everything I saw online said "keep the butter!" so I did!  And boy does this loaf of bread look beautiful.

Yes folks, that is what my loaf looked like (before we devoured most of it).  And this is a picture with my terrible point and shoot camera that is 5 years old with no editing.  All those other pictures had to be edited a bit.  But not this one.  Because that loaf of bread is that beautiful. 

So is your mouth watering yet?  Because here's that recipe:

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp warm honey

1 bottle beer
4 tbsp butter, melted 

1 tsp coarse salt

Preheat oven to 350.  Combine dry ingredients and mix in a medium bowl.  Add slightly warmed honey and beer, mixing with a wooden spoon until they have just incorporated.  Grease a 9" by 5" loaf pan, and add 2 tbsp melted butter to bottom.  After adding dough, spread the reaming butter on top.  Sprinkle salt on batter before baking 50 to 60 minutes or until brown.

Baseball Movies

This weekend my friends and I went and saw "Moneyball," starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill.  The movie follows the Oakland A's and their struggle to put together a winning team on a limited budget.  Full disclosure: I'm a Cleveland Indians fan.  I always have been, as both of my parents are from Cleveland and I have some hardcore Chief Wahoo fans in my family.

"Moneyball" does a great job of showing how much other teams hurt when there's a huge wealth disparity.  Or, at least, that's how it was, before Peter Brand started looking at the game like a Harvard educated economist.  Baseball statistics, as far as I know, have been recorded since the beginning of the game.  Because it is so cut and dry (strike or ball, single or double), teams with money have been able to look at a page of statistics and say "I want that guy, he's got a batting average over 300 and stole 20 bases last year."  What Brand did, however, was teach the A's to buy runs, not players.  If you can get ten players that can do as well as your three star players and cost 40% less, you've got yourself an efficient baseball team.

What made "Moneyball" great (and why it is currently sitting at over 93% on Rotten Tomatoes) is that it's more than a baseball movie.  It's the little guy challenging the establishment, and showing that new ideas can work, even in a sport with a history as long as baseball.  I have friends that went to see the movie that were not baseball fans.  After leaving the theater, one said, "Wow.  I thought that was going to be boring, long and drawn out, like a baseball game.  But even the baseball stuff was interesting!"  When you can get someone who hates baseball enough to refuse to watch the World Series to like a baseball movie, you've done well.

There are two other baseball movies that I love, "Fever Pitch" (don't make fun) and "Major League."  The rom-com style of "Fever Pitch" works for me because the whole time I was watching the movie, I wondered what it was going to be like at the end of the season.  As indifferent to the Red Sox as I am, the 2004 season was one for the record books.  And although "Fever Pitch" is not a movie for the hardcore Sox fan, it's a good baseball-centric story most people can get into.  And I don't think I need to say anything about "Major League" other than that as an Indians fan, I am required to love it.

Out of my (now) three favorite baseball movies, I'd say "Moneyball"  is easily the most accessible to baseball fans and non fans alike.  It does a wonderful job of being a movie with all the baseball quirks (dipping, anyone?) and phrases ("I like him, he's got a strong swing"), but it's easily connectable to those who aren't gearing up for October and the playoffs.  My recommendation: if you like baseball, this is a need to see movie.  If you're not a baseball fan, it's supremely acted and well written and worth your time anyway.