Savory Friday: English Pot Roast and Brunch Crab Meat Eggs Benedict

I'm going to hazard a guess here and say I bet there's not many people who wake up after a good night's sleep and think, "hmmm, man I could really go for a nice pot roast right about now." Am I right?? 

Well, I've always been a bit of an odd duck. I would eat a bowl of roasted broccoli over a big piece of cake alllmost any day. Some of you may be thinking, "she can't be serious," but I am. Dead serious. I don't know why it is; it's just the way it is for me. In any case, this is why you are about to see two very savory things that came together on my Friday off.

[if you thought I ONLY eat savory things, it's untrue, I do like a sweet every now and again, especially ice cream, but I still hold that the best kind of sweet is a salty/sweet, ice cream with pretzels! All about those weird combos!] 

Back to the beginning, I really wanted the roast. I don't think I even cared about eating it, but I LOOOVE the way the smell permeates the house, especially in a slow cooker. All day long. It's one of those classic comforts, ya know? 

So at 10:30 a.m. I start to assemble what will be an incredible slow cooked English roast complete with lots of onions, potatoes, and drippings for gravy. Hold on to your butts, it's gonna be delicious. 

Here's a list of what's going in:  onion. Red skin potatoes. Olive oil. Garlic cloves. Red wine. Red wine vinegar. Salt. Pepper. Garlic powder (ummm garlic is its own food group for me). Steak seasoning. 

Rough chop one and a half medium sized onions. I really like slow cooked onions. Kinda slimy and lots of flavors from the meat. Yum. 

Wash and cut off the weird lookin parts off the potatoes and chop those into big pieces too. 

Dry rub the FROZEN 2.5/3 pound roast with steak seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Put it on top of the layered potatoes and onions in the slow cooker. 

Whip together a little liquid that will aid in making the meat nice and juicy. Red wine, red wine vinegar, olive oil, and add in about 3-5 garlic cloves. 

Dump it on that meat, into the slow cooker. Like a waterfall of everything that is good. 

Just look at it. Look at it just sitting there, waiting to be cooked. 

Throw in a little more liquid - a couple splashes of red wine (I used Charles Shaw Shiraz - 2.99 at Trader Joes. Can't beat it), vinegar, and olive oil. The juices from the meat thawing will help generate a lot of liquid when it's all done, so no worries if it seems as if there's too little liquid. I promise it will be enough. Then you wait. For HOURS, but not without the reward of the smell that comes from the gradual cooking, knowing it'll all be worth it in the end. 

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Post-roast prep, the savory hunger was still not satisfied. I needed some breakfast. As you may have guessed, I'm a little obsessed with poached eggs at the moment so I knew those would be involved. 

I decided to break the norm of sausage and went with a kind of Crab Meat Eggs Benedict. I wasn't exactly sure how it would work, but I whipped it all up and it tasted pretty good!! So I will show you what went on. 

I toasted an English muffin. I took goat cheese from Aldi and imitation crab meat (I know, if I were a "real foodie" I wouldn't use imitation, but I don't have the funds for the real stuff so work with me! ;)) and mixed it together. Heated it a bit just to melt the goat cheese a little, to give it more of a spreadable factor and chance to incorporate with the crab meat. Then, I spread that mixture over the English muffin halves. 

[my friend Jackie and I are convinced that the Aldi cheese section is the best kept secret in Grand Rapids, nay the world. A whole log of goat cheese that would be $4-5 somewhere else is $1.99 at Aldi! What a steal!]

Usually, eggs Benedict is covered in hollandaise, which I love. But, I wanted something a bit healthier so I went with the creamy-ness of the goat cheese and runniness of the egg yolk from the poached eggs to mimic the usual hollandaise. 

Then. My favorites came to rest atop the crab, goat cheese mixture. 

And because it looks pretty and tastes even better, sriracha for design. 

Tada!!! Breakfast. Full stomach. So good. 

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After 10.5 hours in the slow cooker on low, a most beautiful and tender, fall-off-the-bone roast is complete. (I don't think you have to wait that long, but we were out with some friends and didn't come home until late so we did and boy, did it pay off!) 

It's like meat heaven. 

And potato and onion heaven. 

With gravy as a special treat on top of all of that!  

While I still haven't gotten to enjoy a full meal of this, I know it will be waiting for me patiently as I waited for it. It's a beautiful, reciprocal thing. 

Goodbye and goodnight. 

Love, 

Food. 

Slow-cooked English Roast Recipe 

Serves 4-5 (I think?) 

Cook time: Slow-cooker on low for 8-10 hours

2.5-3 lb. English roast or any beef roast probably works. 

1.5 med onions, rough chopped 

10 red potatoes (medium sized), cut in chunks 

Layer the onions and potatoes on bottom of slow cooker. 

Apply dry rub to roast: 

Salt

Black Pepper

Steak seasoning

Garlic powder  

(I like a lot of seasoning and used a good shake across the meat for both sides and patted it all down, so I never think there's ever too much seasoning, but if you'd like less, that's cool too) 

Place roast on top of potatoes and onions. 

Whisk Liquid mixture: 

1/2 c. Olive oil

3/4 c. Red wine (any red you like) 

1/2 c. Red wine vinegar

3-5 Garlic cloves

Pour it over top of roast and veggies. Splash in just a bit more of each liquid if you want to. 

Let her cook. 8-10 hours. Low. 

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"Crab Meat Eggs Benedict" (cuz none of it is actually exactly those things) 

1/2 c. Imitation crab meat, but could use real if you have the cash money. 

1 oz. goat cheese 

1 English muffin

2 eggs 

Sriracha

1. Toast English muffin. 

2. Slightly heat the crab meat and goat cheese in a pan. 

3. Poach the eggs in boiling water. 

4. Spread crab meat and goat cheese on muffin halves. 

5. Top with poached eggs. 

6. Decorate with sriracha.