Hallo Again, CDW has the floor: I was reading about your perfect tomato, cramped counter space (can SO identify!) and mopping (inspiring, btw) and then I see CDW down at the end and her dreaded word...panties. Amen to that. Hate it. Underwear...by all means, unless I just want to be silly and use that disgusting word just for an unwholesome effect :) KEM here, I told you CDW doesn't like the word panties. Let it never be said KEM did not tell you how her pot roast turned out tonight. Normally when I cook, I go, Rats, this tastes pretty much like nuttin'. However, tonight was different. The pot roast sent me into a state of delirium and I started bragging about it to anyone who would listen, which would be Mike, stepson, DT-s-D, Jazzi and Robby. Yes, we had a full house for a change. Even Robby was back from the hospital and his surgery. Robby being gone for 3 days is a very bad and lonesome thing. At the vet's he hisses like a wild animal plucked from the jungle, he growls and makes scary sounds I've never heard before. It all started on his first visit when he went under the bench in the examination room and the vet tech reached under there and grabbed him by the scruff. Imagine that. It was complicated by a board running under the bench, you know? He had to be extracted from the back corner and maneuvered around the board. Robby has never been man handled that way and that was the end of being Sweet Lil' Rob. When they went to draw blood he went completely ape and scratched the tech and there was lots of blood...from the tech. They had to give him (not the tech) funny gas to actually get any blood. Robby loves his mommy and daddy and has little use for mean old vet people. Ain't that sad. Stepson wants to know what we do to our pets that makes them not like other people. But that isn't even true. It depends on the person, any cat or dog knows that. When the techs came to pet him in his cage the last three days, he pulled out his vocabulary again. They couldn't get near him. But when I picked him up today he was pleased as punch and no naughty sounds. I stuck my finger in his cat carry case and he just let me pet him and looked pleased. The doctor watched and I was very proud. Were we talking about pot roast once upon a time? Okay, first off, Sweetbay Supermarket has lovely meat. Just gorgeous. I get the enticing looking roast that has a yellow blazing sticker: $3.00 OFF. That is the roast for me. You bring it home and cook it on the last possible day...why not enjoy aged meat, after all. Get out your Le Creuset, I hope you have one. If not, that is what you want for Christmas, go jot it on your calendar right now. That's what I got for Christmas once, from my dad and sister. Priceless. Mine is a medium yellow oval and weighs about two tons. But that's okay, after you taste the pot roast. Then you brown it in olive oil...slowly, the recipe in the meat package tells you. Oh wait, first you pat flour all over the roast. THEN you brown it in olive oil. Brown it on all sides. Throw in some sliced onions and near the end of the browning, some garlic. Take that baby right out of the yellow pot. Put him on your wonderful cream colored Fiestaware platter. Now, pour in 1 and 1/2 cups vegetable broth plus 1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar. Heat it up and scrape up the savory meat morsels stuck on the bottom of Le Creus. Sprinkle in 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Oh yes, while you are at it, dump in the bacon grease left over from yesterday's BLpT, pT standing for perfect Tomato. Get that hunk of meat back in the pot. Cover with the matching lid. Stick the whole mess in that 325 oven and let it go for 2.5 hours (for a 2.5 pound roast). Now, when the house is smelling so good you can hardly stand it, put that tender beauty back on the washed FW platter. You can reduce the liquidy sauce in the pot, but I didn't have time, since dinner is always an hour late around here. You know, dodging the Christmas china and all. So, I sliced the roast and sloshed gravy all over on the plates, right at the stove. We are not civilized around here and put serving dishes on the table. Look. I am not at all about extra work, refinement be hanged. I'm half zonked by the time the food is ready anyway, then you get to clean up. This is usually why our own cooking doesn't taste so hot. Get it? Then there was Creamy Parmesan Risotto and sauteed mushroom (with bacon grease, again, onion, lemon juice, salt and pepper, be sure and slice the mushrooms thick). Now, I can't help it, but to me this was the perfect pot roast. It melted in your mouth and the sauce was SOOOOOOOOO good, better than with wine. I'm sorry Pioneer Woman, but the meat package recipe was better than when I tried your recipe. I'm sorry Julia Childs...ditto. BTW, I didn't exactly follow the package recipe. They wanted to add chopped dates and go Mediterranean. I didn't have any dates. And they nary said a word about bacon grease. DT-s-D can't believe I cook with butter, oil and grease. Sorry, dry salads are not the answer to the world's problems. Also, recipe wanted shallots, but I had none, so garlic went in. And do you notice how SIMPLE this recipe is? My theory in cooking is that fewer ingredients = better food. Not to mention less work. Win-Win. Okay, it is raining, raining, I'm so happy. We went one LOOOOOONG stretch with no rain. Rain is pure joy, rain, and pot roast. BTW, I know you all cook fabulous pot roast, have for years, but I wrote this in my blog so I won't forget what I did, heh, heh. The cut was bottom round roast. Hey, when my Baby Portabellas came out of the package tonight, they were slimy. And the use by date was smeared so I couldn't read it, don't you just love that, isn't that how it always goes? I noticed the slime in the first instant. So I Googled something like Slimy Baby Portabellas. And sure enough someone else had the same problema back in 2007. And there are such nice people out in this here big world who answered the poor lady. The consensus was 1,000% to Skip the Slime. So Mike and Nick got to run to Rollin' Oats and get a new box of mushrooms. They looked a little over the hill, Mike only checked three packages back, but you know what, they smelled okay, I always poke my nose down deep in the bottom of the box. The Slimies had a strong odor. Anyway, they turned out DEEE-licious. Bragging KEM Hey, can you believe my paragraphs melded again? Something must be done, what is wrong with this machine? Time for some Orangesicle Yogurt. I don't think I spelled Orangesicle right, and hey guess what? Spellcheck isn't working. Maybe my blog site is mad at me for not posting forever. Wait a minute, now Spellcheck has decided to chime in. Orangesicle is striped in yellow. When I clicked on it to get the correct spelling, guess what Spellcheck suggested? (no suggestions) Really, if they can't do any better than that, why bother? Sassy KEM