Beef Pot Roast a La Moi

I hope it doesn't scream like a lobster ...

I have some good news: The crock pot has been used! I have some bad news: I wasn't the one who used it! My husband made a delectable pork something or other. But in idly observing how easy it appeared, I was inspired. People, tomorrow I will be making a beef pot roast. Alert the media.

I informed my husband that if he would sift through and pinpoint a recipe (zzzzz) that I could potentially manage, I would give it a go. So he found one (which has considerably more than the two ingredients for which I'd hoped) and I went to the store and I bought the ingredients. We are half way there!!!

Here's the thing about grocery shopping when you're going to actually make something: you can't forget anything. As long as I didn't forget milk for the girls, every trip to the grocery store was a success. If you need an ingredient to make a specific recipe and you forget it, you're screwed. This seems like a lot of unnecessary pressure for an already unpleasant task.

I called my husband no less than four times from Jewel. Why he doesn't feign more meetings and let my calls go to voicemail is beyond me. I mean, I never call with good news or to exchange pleasantries. It's usually to a) bitch about something; b) ask a dumb question; or c) tell him if he doesn't get his ass home asap I'm going to blow my brains out. (This one is usually placed daily at about 5:00 pm.)

Here is one of our calls from Jewel verbatim:

Me: I'm in the meat section and I don't see four pounds of beef chuck roast.

Him: You have to go to the butcher.

Me: I have to go to Jewel AND a butcher???

Him: There is a butcher at Jewel. (This was said with a minimal amount of hostility or sarcasm. Which I appreciated.)

Me: I don't see a butcher. Are you sure there's one here?

Him: Very sure. (This was said with a hint of sarcasm but I ignored it.)

Speaking of butchers, we knew someone who knew someone who was a butcher and right after he was told he won a prize for selling the most shrimp that week he keeled over from a heart attack. Right there at the store. Seriously. I guess winning such a contest is more exciting than one might think.

Anyway, the recipe I've been tasked with is a bit complex and I wasn't sure if "new potatoes" were the same as "red potatoes" (the topic of the second of my four phone calls) and if there was really such a thing as frozen onions (call #3) and would the recipe be ruined if I got regular old beef broth because I couldn't find the low sodium kind (call #4). The answers: similar enough, yes and probably not.

So wish me luck! I plan on taking pictures. I'd like to "live blog" the whole thing like some bloggers who cover the Academy Awards but I'll probably need my full concentration and both hands. If nobody hears from us tomorrow, send the authorities. We may be dead.