Saturday in the Burbs

My trip to Whole Foods resulted in a 3 lb. sirloin tip roast, among other things. That hunk o' meat was a piece of art I tell you. And on sale. Apparently organic meat is expensive to produce. Sure is pretty though. Wish I had remembered to take a picture of it in all it's brown butcher paper wrapped glory. I'm such a food nerd. I decided to make a pot roast based loosely on this Italian Pot Roast from Pioneer Woman. I organized tore up my pantry looking for artichokes, but couldn't find any. I'm the only one who likes them anyway.

My recipe included frozen pearl onions, roasted red peppers, sun dried tomatoes, green olives, chicken and beef broth, carrot, garlic, parsley, and basil. After I browned the roast on all sides, I baked it covered at 300 degrees for four hours. After four hours, I removed everything but the broth from the pot and added some white wine. I hate when I forget to keep a chilled white. The cook should really sample the wine before adding it to anything. ;) I let the cooking liquid reduce considerably and made a paste with flour and some of the hot liquid. I just added a bit of the flour mixture to thicken it into a sauce. Not gravy. Although I have nothing against gravy.

I served everything on wide egg noodles. The meat was so tender and flavorful. Velvety even. I hate when you make a pot roast and the meat tastes like nothing or has a weird texture. It made so much I froze half of it. And as usual, I didn't label the container before putting it in the freezer. It'll be a surprise that way.

I discovered a cool blog called Petit Design Co. She's doing 31 days of quilting with a walking foot. You should see some of the designs. Amazing. Perfect for me since just the mere thought of free motion quilting causes me to perspire. I'm not so bad with the walking foot. Quilt basting is not fun for me, but I'm going to try to quilt some of my smaller tops.

This scrappy batik top was one of the first quilt tops I made. It still needs to be quilted. I have a pile of tops. Some of them even have backs and binding. Time to get these babies quilted. I'll send some out and give the others a try myself.