Illustrated

On the way home from church, I stopped in the upscale grocery to pick up lunch and a bottle of wine. The wine, it should be noted, is for a pot roast, although I fully intend to enjoy a glass once I finish this post; quality control, you know. The craving for pot roast is the fault of a friend on facebook, who took one of those silly quizzes, which said she could make a pretty good pot roast...

That was enough to plant the seed. The hope is that Aldi will have chuck roast (their meat selection varies from week to week), since the price at the upscale was 50% too high. My pot roast recipe is extremely complicated: Salt and pepper huge pieces of chuck roast. Brown all sides in a skillet with a bit of vegetable oil. Drop the browned meat into the crock pot; douse with 1 1/2 to 2 cups of red wine. Cook on low eight hours or so.

An impulse buy at the store was an issue of Cook's Illustrated dedicated to make ahead - including freezable - dishes.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Cook's Illustrated? It is fascinating to read the test kitchen information, to see why they used what they used and why they have specific instructions for cooking methods. There are already three or four different recipes I'd like to try. My only complaint is that most of the freezer recipes are for six servings or more; I need to do some testing of my own to see if it's possible to cut them in half successfully.

On that note, it's time for that glass of wine and dinner.