WARNING: If you don't eat beef, you won't like this post...
I love pot roast. LOVE it! I throw everything in to the crockpot and in 8 hours it's perfect. I don't prep the meat or do anything fancy and it ALWAYS turns out great. But, in the past I've only ever made a 1-2 pound pot roast because for me, the best part of the pot roast is the veggies.
When we bought our grassfed beef freezer package from our local butcher, they put enormous chuck roasts in there. I knew we could never eat that much, so I got to work on formalizing a plan. After an agonizing amount of planning (about 4 minutes), I came up with a game plan. Last night I put it in to action. The results? 1 crockpot, $34, and three nights of meals.
Strategy 1 - Operation Big Ass Pot Roast
-Place two huge pot roasts in a big 7 qrt crock pot
-Add halved or quartered potatoes, chunks of carrots, and 1/2 diced onion
-Sprinkle meat with seasoning salt or kosher salt, and pepper
-Throw in some minced garlic
-Add beef broth or stock until it covers half of the meat (make sure the veggies are all covered by broth)
-Put crockpot on low for 8 hours
Strategy 2 - Glean leftovers from crockpot
-Shred all of leftover meat. Divide into two equal parts
Strategy 3 - Operation Haga los Enchiladas ("make enchiladas" according to babelfish)
-Use half of the shredded beef and make a batch of enchiladas. I used The Pioneer Woman's recipe (but used coconut oil to fry the tortillas instead of canola oil. Canola oil is barf)
-Store covered in the fridge and serve for dinner the next night
Strategy 4 - shredded BBQ beef sandwiches
-Use the remaining half of the shredded beef. Add BBQ sauce. Mix. Freeze.
If you need that broken down in to multiple smaller steps, I worry for you.
Last night Mr. Frugal by Force was out at his internship, so it was just me and the little lad. I managed to do almost all of this while Jack was eating dinner. He was my supervisor grading my performance from his perch in the highchair that I brought in to the kitchen. He provided great directions like "Onions. CUT UP. MOMMA. Meat. Tortwilla. COOKIE pwease"?
Let's run the numbers!
Note, each meal makes enough for 2 adults + 1 toddler. And then lunches the next day for the adults.
Meal 1 - Pot Roast
-Two enormous grassfed pot roasts - $17
-Organic carrots, onions & potatoes (purchased in bulk) - $1.20
-Organic beef broth (Better than Bouillon from Costco ) $.35
-Spices - $.10
Total: $18.65
Meal 2 - Enchiladas
-Can of enchiladas sauce - $2.50 (next time I'll stock up when they're on sale or make my own)
-2 cans of diced green chilies - $2 (I stocked up during the last 10/$10 sale!)
-Package of tortillas - $3.49 (I've made my own before, but these are freshly made at a local market and way better than mine)
-Organic chicken broth (Better than Bouillon from Costco) - $.20
-Organic coconut oil - $.25
-Organic onion (purchased in bulk) - $.50
-Will serve with refried beans - $1.12 and homemade spanish rice in the rice cooker - $.50
Total: $10.56
-postscript: I forgot about organic cilantro and green onions! Add $1.20 to this recipe (I used the cilantro and onions for other dishes too).
Meal 3 - Shredded BBQ beef sandwiches
-Bottle of Annie's Organic BBQ sauce (I actually don't like this stuff, because I think it tastes like donkey balls, BUT I had it and didn't want to waste it) - $3.29
-Homemade burger buns - $.40??
-Sweet potato fries ~ $1.00
-Green beans - $0 (frozen from my garden this summer)
Total: $4.69
Grand total for 3 meals from 2 crockpot roasts and 1 day of cooking: $33.90
Postscript: see note above in the enchiladas. Total for all 3 meals goes up to $35.10Labels: Beef, Crockpot cookin', Main dishes, Poverty Cookbook