I inventoried my chest freezer last week, and decided to pull out the chuck roast I had in there and cook that up. I turned to Good Eats for inspiration and cooked it the way Alton Brown showed in his A Chuck for Chuck episode (see videos at the end of this). I did cook mine in the crock pot instead of the oven, and it turned out wonderfully. See!
pot roast with a side of shredded carrots and squash with ziti currants
I’ve been nibbling on it for a few different meals, including a breakfast, over the last few days. I had about a quarter pound left, and decided I wanted to do something different. I put a question out there on Twitter and someone suggest pot roast. Great idea! except… a pastry crust, I’m not sure would be terribly WLS friendly, though I’m sure I could find a recipe out there that is. But… I wasn’t about to bother, cause I’ve never really liked pot-pie crusts anyways. But I still had plenty of “gravy” and I like veges, so I had to figure out something else to use for a crust.
Then I remembered I had some of the Shiritaki Tofu Noodles in my fridge… that just might work.
So what I did is drained and rinsed the noodles, then patted them dry with a paper towel. Beat up an egg in a small bowl and toss the noodles in, stirring to coat. I’ve got these ceramic like bowls I liberated from the dorm cafeteria back in college that are just the right size for something like this. I sprayed them lightly with non-stick spray and put just over one-quarter of the noodles in the bottom of each bowl and popped them in my toaster oven set at 350 for about 10 minutes.
The idea here was to get the egg/noodles to set a bit, make a bottom crust layer.
While that was cooking, I shredded the roast beef… I had about a quarter pound of it… and put that in a bowl with about 1 cup of mixed veges and 1 cup of the gravy. Season with a bit of salt and pepper to taste and mix up well. The veges I used were frozen peas and corn, along with some fresh carrots that I diced up and nuked to cook a bit, then some of my farmer’s market green beans that I had frozen. I nuked those with the carrots and chopped in to bite size pieces as well. Use what ever you have on hand and like.
You can see how the egg/noodles cooked up a bit in the bowl on the left. I then spooned the meat mixture in to both bowls, topped with the rest of the noodles, and then for each bowl I took two crackers, crushed them up and and stirred in about a teaspoon of graded parmasean cheese before sprinkling over the top.
These got popped back in the 350 degree oven for about another 10-12 minutes, then I cranked the heat up to broil and let them sit in there about a minute more to brown the crumb topping.
This one may have toasted just a lil too much… but no sweat, just pick of any of the crumbs that are too well done.
I served this up with a small bit of salad. Lettuce was fresh from my neighbors garden and the Russian dressing I made.
It wasn’t exactly a pot pie… but it was pretty good. You could likely double this up pretty easy and cook in say an 8×8 pan or a small pie dish, just adjust the cooking time up a few minute for the larger container. Or try it in smaller ramekins, and reduce the time a little bit. And if you have ideas/suggestions for other ways I could have done a crust, leave me a comment so I can try it next time!
Oh yea, here’s the videos from the Good Eats episode.. Part 1 and Part 2
