Summer Garden Beef Pot Roast (GFCF) recipe

I must say that after about nine months of composting, it is still very satisfying.  It’s satisfying to mix in homemade compost into my garden, and satisfying that those veggie kitchen scraps are going to good use, and not just thrown in the trash.

I was thinking about that this morning as I was peeling carrots.  🙂

I was also thinking about a recent visit to allrecipes.com, a site which I really like, and seeing “recipes” for chicken whose sole ingredients were:

• A chicken
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp paprika

That’s it.  The recipe in question has received more than 1,000 reviews (average of 4.5 stars, out of 5), and nearly 71,000 people have saved it as a favorite.  😮

Call me a snob, but I just don’t consider that a recipe.

My sweet friend Daja blogged about this cultural phenomenon recently:  Recipes that aren’t, which she entitled They just don’t make ’em like they used to, in which she contrasted old fashioned recipes with newer “recipes”.

Or how about this gem: specific instructions on spreading marshmallow cream and peanut butter on bread.  Silly me, I thought that was something we didn’t admit to eating, not something we outlined in great detail.

Lots of good, fresh recipes on the site from which this pic was taken! The Seasonal Gourmet. Perfect.

So, anyway.  I was thinking about all of this, considering whether or not what I was making this morning qualifies as a true recipe.  I decided that, yes, it does, even though I almost never actually use recipes for dinner.  I pretty much just buy what’s on sale and in season (and now, what I can reap from my garden, or what was in my weekly CSA basket), look in the fridge and assess what I have, and come up with a plan that matches what I have on hand.  That’s what I did, this morning.  Since it’s summertime, I used ingredients that I probably wouldn’t have on hand in the winter, like red bells, fresh basil, and zucchini.  And, of course, if you’re going to make a pot roast in the summer, you must use a Crockpot.  Heating up the whole house just makes no sense.

Here ya go:

Summer Garden Beef Pot Roast

serves 6-8
(click here for pdf:  Summer Garden Beef Pot Roast pdf)

• 3-5 lb beef chuck roast, bone-in
• 8 medium carrots (about 1 pound)
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 large onion
• 1 large zucchini (about 1 pound)
• 4 stalks celery, with leaves
• 1 – 28 oz can diced tomatoes OR about 3 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
• 2 Tbsp sweet California chili powder OR paprika
• 1 tsp dry, rubbed sage
• ¼ cup chopped fresh basil (about 10 – 15 large leaves)
• 8 cloves garlic, rough chopped
• 2 tsp sea salt
• ½ tsp fresh cracked pepper
• IF you have a very large (8+ quart) Crockpot, 3 lbs Yukon gold and/or red-skinned potatoes.

1. Place the roast in the bottom of a 6 or 7 quart Crockpot (usually oval-shaped, rather than round).  No need to cut it up.
2. As you prepare each veggie, just throw it in, atop the roast.
3. Peel the carrots and slice lengthwise.  Cut each “stick” into 3-4 pieces.
4. Core and seed the red bell pepper, cut into pieces approximately 1″ x 1″.
5. Peel and slice the onion into about 16 sections.
6. Cut the zucchini lengthwise into quarters and chop into pieces about ½” wide.
7. Chop the celery into pieces about ½” wide.  (Leave the leaves.  They add more flavor!  Or, just do what I do:  Cut off the dried ends of a bunch of celery, then chop from there until you have about 1 cup of pieces.)
8. Add the tomatoes, chili powder (or paprika), sage, basil, garlic, salt, and pepper.
9. If you used canned tomatoes, add some water to the can to rinse out the remaining tomatoes and add to the Crockpot.  If you used fresh tomatoes, add 1 cup water.
10. If you still have room remaining in your Crockpot, cut each potato into 4-6 pieces and continue adding until Crockpot is full.
11. Gently stir contents of the Crockpot with a wooden spoon (or just plunge your hands in and mix).
12. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 6-7 hours until meat is fall-apart tender.
13. If you added potatoes, you have a complete, one-dish meal.  If you did not add potatoes, serve over mashed potatoes or rice.
14. Enjoy!