How to Make a Cheap Inexpensive Cut of Meat Taste Like a Million Dollars

Edited to add: I've posted these before, but I'm reposting in order to participate in the Ultimate Recipe Swap Crockpot Edition at Life as Mom.

One of my favorite meals to make in the crock-pot is pot-roast. Using slow, moist heat, almost any cut of beef, including those that are relatively inexpensive, will come out delicious and fork-tender.

The easiest way to do this is use a packet of Lipton Beefy Onion soup, along with a good all-purpose seasoing mix ( I use Tony's Chachere's Creole Seasoning.) If I have them, I usually throw in some potatoes and carrots.

When I don't have any soup mix on hand, I use dried onion flakes and beef bouillion or beef stock paste (my favorite), along with my Tony Chay-chay's.

Sometimes I had a couple of splashes of Worchestershire and soy sauce, but not always.

I have three different slow-cookers, but becuase of the way I travel back and forth between home and where ever it is that my husband is working at the time, I don't always have the right size for the amount of food I'm cooking. A tip I got from Stephanie Odea at A Year of Crockpotting is to use a crumpled up piece of aluminum foil to fill up the "dead space" when the crock is oversized in comparison to the the amount of food I'm cooking.

Some basic tips for using a crock-pot or slow cooker:

• Always, always, always lightly grease the crock insert or spray with cooking spray. Always.
• Turn it on high for the first hour or so to get a bit of quick start of bringing your food up to cooking temperature, then turn down to low for the rest of the day.
• Crock-pots work great for overnight cooking, too. I do this a lot on Saturday night so that I have a meal ready for noon on Sundays.
• I seldom add any water or liquid when I'm cooking roast, other than Worchesteshire sauce, etc, for seasonings, I find that the meat usually makes enough au jus on it's own.

Sometimes I take it out and slice it, then put it back into the au jus to keep warm--it only gets better and more tender--and leftovers the next day are better yet!

Until next time, good cooking, and good eating!