That’s sliced pot roast in the foreground, laid partly on pasta, and the sort-of red sauce that got whizzed up in the food processor after cooking the meat in the pressure cooker.
I’m on a kitchen mission. A mission to work more diligently to clean out my freezer. I not only have a huge full freezer in my kitchen, but I have a second lower-drawer freezer in the refrigerator/freezer in our garage. That latter freezer holds mostly meat. And it holds a LOT. Enough that, were we to have a catastrophe of major proportions, I think we could live (with a generator, mind you, keeping the meat frozen) for at least 3 months without buying any meat. At a guess, 3 months. Veggies – well that’s a different matter. I have some canned stuff and a few frozen bags, but mostly my freezer is full of meat products, at least 5 pounds of different kinds of nuts, a few oddball things like frozen limeade, squeezed lemon juice from our Meyer lemon trees, chutneys of a few varieties, and some ordinary things like chili, soup (lots), bread, bacon, sausage that we have for breakfast most days, a few cookies, one dessert I made a couple of weeks ago, and some chipotle chiles.
My DH, darling that he is, often tells people how much meat we have in our reserve freezer, and that all he must buy is a Coleman stove and we’d be in business. We could set up a local soup kitchen. But we’d need that stove first, which we haven’t purchased. We should. All part of earthquake or emergency preparedness. We don’t have a generator, either. So, the next best thing is to start eating up the meat.
Therefore, I defrosted a 3-pound chunk of boneless chuck roast a few days ago. It was nicely sealed up in plastic (I have one of those FoodSaver things that seals foods of all kinds so they don’t get freezer burn). My guess is that there are other people out there like me – who really know how to pack a freezer. Right? We’re almost to the point that our kitchen freezer door must be opened carefully – like Fibber McGee’s closet, for fear something will fall out and break your toe. Most of you readers are too young to remember Fibber McGee and Molly, a long-running radio program (1935 – 1959), where one of the long-standing jokes was about somebody inadvertently opening the hall closet to a long, noisy crash of stuff. I vaguely remember the program because my parents loved the show. Once we got a television (about 1946, when I was 5) we didn’t listen to much radio anymore. But the joke about the closet lives on and it always ended with Fibber’s comment: I’ve gotta clean out that closet one of these days. My freezer, therefore, is my Fibber McGee’s closet!
The last few days I’ve been more than a bit under the weather. But I’d defrosted this roast before I got my cough/cold thing I have, so on day 3 of my cold I dug out my Fagor Duo Stainless-Steel 6-Quart Pressure Cooker
The pot roast took about 20 minutes of prep (browning the meat, cutting up all the veggies and cooking them briefly), and about 1 1/4 hours to cook it all under pressure. Then I removed the meat and tented it with foil while I prepared the sauce. All of the stuff left in the pan, the veggies (except the fat I was able to spoon off the top) went into my food processor and I whizzed it up to a smooth puree. I tasted it for seasonings, then poured it out over the sliced beef and the pasta. With a green salad, that was a complete dinner.
Bottom line: it was good. Certainly not as good as my tried-and-true French Pot Roast a la Mode that I’ve used for years. That takes innumerable hours to make and bake. But since I was in sort of a hurry, it was very good. My DH loved it – really loved it. And it was on the table in about 2 hours.
Italian Pot Roast (Pressure Cooker)
Recipe By: Adapted from a recipe in Pressure Cooking for Everyone by Rick Rodgers and Arlene Ward, 2000
Serving Size: 6
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
3 1/2 pounds chuck roast — boneless rump or bottom round
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 large onion — peeled, chopped
3 medium carrots — peeled, chunks
3 stalks celery — chopped
3 large garlic cloves — finely chopped
1/2 cup dry red wine
28 ounces canned tomatoes
1/4 cup Italian parsley — chopped
1/2 pound pasta — your choice of type, or mashed potatoes or rice
1. In a large pressure cooker (5-7 quart), heat one tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. Dry the roast briefly with paper towels and add to the hot pan. Saute until one side is dark brown, turn over and repeat on second side, about 5 minutes. Transfer meat to a plate and season the meat with salt and pepper.
2. If there is fat in the pan you may pour it off, then add the other tablespoon of oil. Add the onion, carrots, and celery. Saute for a few minutes until the vegetables are nearly limp. Add the garlic and stir, cooking for another minute. Add the red wine, seasonings, and bring to a boil, scraping up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan, using a wooden spoon. Add the chopped tomatoes and their juice. Stir.
3. Return the meat on top of the vegetables, adding any juices from the plate. Lock the pressure cooker lid in place and bring to high pressure. Reduce heat (using directions for your own pressure cooker) but maintain a steady steam and cook for 1 1/4 hours. Remove from heat and cool, using directions with your unit. Open lid and transfer the meat to a platter and cover lightly with foil.
4. Pour all of the veggie mixture into a food processor and blend until the mixture is pureed. Return to the pressure cooker pan and reheat. Taste for seasonings.
5. Meanwhile, prepare your choice of carbohydrate (1) pasta; (2) mashed potatoes; or (3) rice. Slice the meat across the grain and place beside and partly on top of the carb and pour the sauce over the top. Garnish with Italian parsley.
Per Serving (this assumes you consume all the sauce and fat – you may not): 802 Calories; 47g Fat (53.9% calories from fat); 49g Protein; 41g Carbohydrate; 4g Dietary Fiber; 153mg Cholesterol; 554mg Sodium.
A year ago: Stacked Chicken Enchiladas
Two years ago: A list of travel websites
Three years ago: Chocolate Scones (fantastic!)
Suzette
said on October 5th, 2015:
This recipe sounds great! I’m going to make it tonight. Thank you!!
Hope you liked it . . . carolyn t