Inspired Cooking, Beef Daube

Santa really listened to me this year.  I had a short list of cookbooks that I've been eyeing and boy, did he deliver!  I have an ever growing collection of cookbooks.  I haven't actually counted them, but I think it would be safe to say I have close to 100.  The first cookbooks I ever bought were the Gourmet Cookbooks, Volumes 1 & 2.  I remember how excited I was when I ordered them and had my name embossed in gold on their covers.  That was almost 35 years ago.   They still sit on my bookshelf and now have a lot of company.  I honestly think that they were the last cookbooks I bought for myself.  Over the years, I've received most of my collection as gifts.  I love getting new cookbooks.  This Christmas I've added four more to my collection.  I was excited to receive Nigella Lawson's Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home, Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes, by David Lebovitz and Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table.  A gap was also filled in my Ina Garten collection, after receiving Barefoot Contessa Parties!

I was inspired by our recent NY blizzard to dive into Dorie Greenspan's new book, Around My French Table.  This book is beautiful.  What else can I say?  The photographs are gorgeous.  It has made me look at French cooking in a whole new way.  It is one of those books that I will want to cook through the recipes, cover to cover.  Now I know why it is listed in the Top 10 cookbooks of 2010.  Thank you Lauren.

With almost 2 feet of snow on the ground,  and a quiet day alone, I thought I would make a comforting stew.  Matt and Lauren were spending the day in the city and I knew they would be hungry and cold when they returned.  I can pretty much count on Matt being hungry anytime he comes home for a visit.

Slow Cooker Pot Roast: Nostalgic and Ridiculously Easy Comfort Food

There's a chill in the air.  The days are getting shorter.  Time to dust off some of those recipes I wouldn't think of making in the summer.  I was looking for some old fashioned comfort food.  I didn't feel like fussing and if I could get 2 dinners out of 1 night of cooking, even better.

My mom used to be big on comfort food.  The first time Paul came to dinner at my parents house in New York, my mom made her famous pot roast.  Well, it was famous in our family at least.  I think she was trying to impress him.  My dad met Paul in California a few months earlier and he must have given mom a favorable report when he returned home.  Up to that point in time, my dad couldn't stand never particularly took to any of my boyfriends.  I was home from California for the holidays, and Paul was in the city on business.  I told my parents that Paul was coming out to Long Island to pick me up and we were going out to dinner.  My mother said, "nonsense, he'll come here for dinner!"  My dad said, "your mother will make a pot roast".   The rest is history.  That pot roast is the most talked about pot roast in the history of pot roast!  When Paul visits my mom who will be 92 in February, he always asks her, "do you remember the first dinner you ever cooked for me?"  She smiles, takes his hand, kisses it and holds it against her cheek.  You see, she doesn't remember much of anything anymore.  He reminds her, "you make me pot roast!"  She smiles and says, "I know that, I wanted to see if you remembered."

Now that you know my pot roast story.  I have a confession to make.  I was not a big fan of mom's pot roast.  I always wanted to like it, but it just lacked something.  I think I didn't like mom's pot roast because it simply wasn't cooked slow enough and she didn't cook with wine.  Slow, low, and pour on some wine....that's the secret!  

This recipe is the easiest thing in the world to make.  You dump everything in the crock pot, plug it in, return 6-10 hours later....and you will have the richest, tastiest, pot roast ever....definitely not your mother's pot roast.  If you love braised short ribs, you'll really love this dish.