Easy Beef Tips

I have this specific recipe in my slow cooker right now. I'm waiting for my daughter to let me know if she wants mashed potatoes or egg noodles so I can have it ready when she gets home. I'll be going out to dinner with a friend. I want to taste this before I go. I've been wanting to make it for a long while.

The recipe calls for 2-2.5 pounds of beef, but I had only bought 1 pound from our tiny full-service grocery. I like them because they have a real butcher. Everything is cut fresh and this meat had been run through a grinder with very large holes, so it was perfect for beef tips. It was like thick strips of meat, but they were round because of the grinder. Because I didn't have the ingredients to make it right away (I was actually thinking of making pepper steak when I first bought the meat), I had triple wrapped it and put it in the freezer. I took it out yesterday and thawed it and today I put it together in the cooker.

The slow cooker I am using has a removable pot, so I was able to brown the meat right in the same pot it would be cooked in, so no need to dirty a bunch of pans. The small bowl and container I used to make the gravy and flour the meat are easy to clean, so I'm not too worried about those.

So, if you made this, what would you eat it with? Mashed potatoes? Egg noodles? Or rice (which my daughter won't touch, so I didn't ask her about that)?

Here is the link to the recipe: recipesthatcrock.com/slow-cooker-beef-tips-gravy/

Credit for photo belongs to the website where I got the recipe: www.recipesthatcrock.com.

Chili Mac - yeah, it's for dinner.

Been craving chili mac for a while now. I have no idea why since it's not something I've ever made and I don't remember ever eating it before. But, I love chili and I love macaroni/pasta, and somehow the combination just struck me as the perfect meal.

I finally thawed out some ground beef yesterday, but went to dinner with a friend, so I made this today. I basically made it like I do my regular chili and added the pasta. It's not like "Hamburger Helper" where it can be put on a plate with other sides. This still needs a bowl and a spoon. But, I am very happy with how it turned out.

I had a pound of ground beef that I browned. I added a can of Progresso Fire-roasted Tomato Meal Starter sauce, two cans of beans (your choice, but I used red beans and pintos), a can of tomatoes with mild green chilis and a can of stewed tomatoes. I also added about a cup of diced green peppers, another cup of diced onions and maybe 3/4 cup of diced celery. Once it was all hot and boiling and the 8 oz. of pasta was nearly cooked, I added between 2 and 3 teaspoons of chili powder (I don't like too much because it can be very bitter and you can't undo that) and then I added several shakes of Tabasco sauce. The one thing I forgot to add was salt. But, that's ok since all of the canned products I used have salt. And, I can add it in my dish if I want to.

Now I've eaten chili over rice before, a trick I used when we'd have a surprise guest for dinner on chili night. But, this is the first time I've had pasta with my chili. I like it. And, it makes the regular amount of chili go twice as far because it adds bulk.

Have you ever made chili mac and what did you do different to yours?

Photo is mine while the chili mac was still boiling on low on the stove.

Spiral Ham and Pinto Beans

Mine are like these, but I won't add seasoning until they're cooked.

My daughter was given a spiral ham for Christmas by her new employer. We never baked it because she's not fan of ham. I decided I wanted ham yesterday. I REALLY wanted ham. I could just taste it I wanted it so bad. But, I wanted to do it in my crock pot instead of in the oven. I found instructions online on how long to cook the ham, but I ran into a problem. The ham was too big for the crock pot. Apparently, the one used in the instruction was oval. Mine is round. 

So, I took the crock out since it already had the ham in it and stuck it in the 250 oven and baked it for just over 50 minutes per the regular instructions. It was perfect! It came with a brown sugar glaze, but I didn't put that on it. Instead I made it as a side sauce and used it to dip my ham in.

Today, I cut off the remaining slices of ham from the bone and froze the large end piece of ham. The slices are packed separately and are in the fridge for breakfast, lunch and dinner options (for a day or two - after that, I'll freeze them, too.)

Then this evening, I took the crock that had the ham in it and added a pound of pinto beans to it along with sufficient water for cooking. I am going to have myself some pinto beans flavored with the ham drippings from that Christmas ham. I am looking forward to it.

Right now, I'm thinking of breakfast - scrambled eggs, crisped up slices of ham and a side of beans with a flour tortilla. I don't have any potatoes, but that's OK. I'm better off with the lower carb option. Still, I'm looking forward to my breakfast in the morning. 

Too Little Too Long Without a Post

For my first two weeks of my new job, I had no computer, no phone and virtually no work. Then, I got a computer and all of a day in training (if you can call it that since the person training me was packing to leave the job for good) and all last week I struggled to understand what the heck I was doing even as I was being trained for even more things to do. I was so deep to the bone tired at the end of each day, I didn't care whether or not I got online. I didn't post on Facebook and I barely answered email. I was just beat!!

Apparently, I'm adapting because this week, so far, I've been able to come home and NOT immediately fall into a deep sleep. Yesterday, I stopped at the neighborhood grocer and got bread, rolls and lunch meat for work. I got home in time to smell the roast beef I'd had in the crock pot all day and enjoyed the most wonderful hot roast beef sandwich for supper!

Tonight, I stopped at the bank, came home and watched television, ate my leftover Chinese food lunch, and have been playing online for just over an hour. And, I'm about to go downstairs to get my clothes from the dryer. Maybe this stuff doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment, but if you had been able to know how I felt last week compared to how I feel this week, you'd know that these things really ARE accomplishments! My back has ached all day, but even that's nothing compared to how bad my entire body felt last week. 

But, back to that crock pot beef.....I got myself a crock pot one day last week. I had seen one on Freecycle and when I responded, the person ahead of me had changed their mind, so the pot was mine if I wanted it. I wanted it. It's a Hamilton Beach 6 Qt Crock Watcher with AutoShift and a removable crock. 

The first thing I did was buy a couple of bottom round roasts that were on sale at ShopRite and put one in the freezer Sunday night while looking forward to Monday morning when I would put the other one in the crock. Although I was thinking at the time that we'd do mashed potatoes and gravy, Deb was too tired from working 15 1/2 hours the day before and only getting about 5 hours sleep before going to work again, so I just opted to slice the meat and make a hot roast beef sandwich with one of the Kaiser rolls I'd bought on the way home. 

I so enjoyed that sandwich!! I had added a packet of onion soup mix to the meat and a couple cups of water, so there was a nice broth to have with the meat. The sandwich was sloppy and flavorful and it was wonderful! When Deb came downstairs, she also had one. There are two rolls left and half the meat and broth. I shredded what was left of the meat.

I think I'll make a turkey ham and cheese sandwich for work tomorrow. I bought yogurt that was on sale, too, so I can take yogurt to have with it. I just love La Yogurt - so smooth and fruity. They were on sale for 10 for $3.30. I'm going to get some more this week when I get paid again before the sale is over. That's a good price and they're really good.

Anyway, I've said this before, but I really do mean it - I'm going to try to post more often because I do like having this blog and I do like talking about food (even more than I like eating it, believe it or not!) But, right now I need to get to bed. Way early day tomorrow because we're taking my daughter's car to the shop for a new front axle. Fun times.