Hearty Monday

Monday, the cafeteria had their "Texas Pot Roast" for lunch. I decided to give it a shot, as I was fairly hungry after my light Sunday eating:

I discovered fairly quickly what made it a "Texas" pot roast ... one of the things it was cooked in was jalapenos. Luckily, it wasn't too overpowering, and gave a nice robustness to the flavor. The potatoes were pretty well done that day, but they still needed help from the gravy.

For dinner, I fried up some ground beef, Italian sausage, then doused it in some Prego meat sauce and simmered it for a while. I boiled some penne pasta up then drowned it in some of the sauce and had some crescent roll rounds to fill it out:

The sauce was more meaty than saucy, and the penne just sucked up even more of the sauce, so it was more like a beefy mac. That said, it was still really tasty, and only could've been better if it was a chilly night, instead of in the beginning of summer.

Not a very healthy day

On Saturday, I went in to work, in order to make some of the time I missed for my vacation up. I ended up being there for 11 hours that day. For lunch, the cafeteria had a lot of stuff that didn't look that good, and 2 things that did, beef and potatoes:

The roast was good, and had so much gravy it was almost like a beef stew. The flavor was nice, not too salty but very hearty. The potatoes were actually salted and the gravy just enhanced them, instead of making them just tasty.

For dinner, I was tuckered out, so I just went the easy route and tossed some more chicken tenders and fries in the oven:

Monday Meat and Potatoes with a guest star

Monday was a meat and potatoes kind of day. I started it off with having that for lunch, from the cafeteria. They had some rotisserie chicken, which I teamed up with the potatoes and gravy, and today's guest star, some corn:

Their chicken comes in quarters, so it was a breast and wing, which I had attacked before remembering to get the photo.

The chicken was ok, the flavor managed to penetrate into the meat fairly well. The corn was really good and the potatoes were just ok, but the gravy managed to save them, as usual.

For dinner, I cooked a beef roast in the crock pot. This is what it looked like when I was leaving for work:

And I forgot to get an after photo of the whole thing. But, I whipped some gravy up from its juices and some instant potatoes to accompany it:

The gravy was nice and thick and REALLY rich, more so than I intended, but still tasty. And here's what was on my plate for dinner:

It was great and I was stuffed.

Beef Roast

I'm a sucker for meat and potatoes. One of my favorite dishes (seriously like top 5, maybe 3) is a good beef roast with some nice thick gravy and the old reliable side dish of creamed potatoes. I'm sure I could eventually get sick of eating this for every meal, but I don't like to think about how many months or years it would take.

The preparation of this bad boy was browning it in a skillet in the morning, then tossing him into the crockpot. I dumped some salt, pepper, rubbed sage, meat tenderizer, Worcestershire sauce and Dale's seasoning sauce in there with him. Then left him alone while I went to work.

After getting home, I attempted to pull him out of the crock pot and he came out in pieces.

Then the juices were poured into a sauce pan and turned into this luscious gravy:

Tossed some corn into the bowl with a little extra water and butter and salt, and then the creamed potatoes and Sister Schubert's to finish the meal out in tasty style:

I love this dish.