An Evening with Chuck Roast

Pot roast for a stay home night.

When I saw Chuck Roast on sale last week I took my sharpie and circled the ad. It had been a while since I had made a pot roast and I was ready for this event. The next day I was at the IGA looking over the roasts and found a nice piece with nice marbling and size. The ritual of a roast is one I have been performing since college in Austin and it brings back countless memories of homey meals on chilly evenings. For a man into stodge a pot roast with plenty of potatoes, carrots and rich gravy to be slopped up with a nice gutsy bread is a meal to be eaten with the olfactory as well as the palate. Celery, bell pepper, onions, bay leaves, and spices enrich the dish.
The beauty of a pot roast is leftovers. What guy doesn’t want pot roast two days in a row? I don’t want to know him.

The Urban Crock Pot

 

Black Bean Mexican Soup

Recently one of my Facebook chums mused that he was offically a suburbanite now that he had a new crockpot. I commented that my crock pot was over 20 years old and has served me well in the City.

 

In these hard times when comfort food is a simple pleasure and “Slow Food” is in vogue the crock pot is naturally an excellent choice. For the guy that needs his stodge a crock pot is a handy device indeed. However one does not just throw ingredients into the pot willy nilly and voila! find himself with the perfect beef stew.

What I have learned is that a proper meal such as beef stew benefits from the extra time one takes with browning the meat and sauteing the onions and aromatics. Called the sofrito in spanish and mirepoix in french the ingredients vary by culture and region. A holy trinity by taste, but that is a story for another entry.

This browning and sauteing is done on the stove and for me in a cast iron skillet. These seasoned bits and pieces are added to the crock pot including any rouxes made in said skillet. Finally water, stock or wine is added to the skillet to deglaze it and make sure every bit of flavor completes your simmered meal.

Every meal doesn’t require such devotion however. A simple and plain pot of beans is just that but even beans need a little knowledge and that is to pour boiling water into the crock pot of washed beans. No soaking required. 

I have come home to the aroma of a long simmered meal when I took that extra time to put on the crock and coming home half crocked to a crock makes for a much more pleasant next morning.

Stodge on the Go! De Lessio

On a chilly day in ol’ S.F. a nice warm filling meal is usually on the agenda. Today I had a mid-afternoon meeting and I thought. Why not? It’s a block away from my meeting and I have not been there in a while. I was rewarded. De Lessio is a caterer/bakery on Market Street that expanded to a cafe with salad & hot food bars. Today I stodged up good. Mac & cheese, sweet potatoes, carrots, and chicken enchiladas with a little braised red cabbage on the side.

 

Hot Food Bar with Mac & Cheese

Needless to say I had to use restraint to skip the roast chicken, meat loaf, broc and the whole salad bar of about 20 offerings. De Lessio is promoting their well prepared food these days as coming from the best local food sources, mostly in Marin County. These growers are often organic or free range type farms, ranches and dairies. I have always liked De Lessio but today seemed especially delicious. Their chicken enchiladas were not smothered in goopy cheese but well spiced to beat half the Mexican restaurants in town. The mac and cheese was done to make any american proud. I just wish I could get by on about half the food I pile on the plate. You pay by the pound there and stodge ain’t light fare. 

 

Numerous people were there for late lunch and many were using ToGo cartons. As he often does the owner came by  to check if everything was okay. I complimented the enchiladas. Mom would too.

If I remember correctly De Lessio also makes a good Cubana sandwich and the beautiful desserts are a whole 12 page article of praise in the Sunday New York Times. 

I have a meeting near there again in two weeks. I’ll make a note to breakfast lightly and have lunch at De Lessio.