Sharing Treasures

Today I was invited to attend a luncheon with Ann Romney, Mitt Romney’s wife (former governor and Presidential candidate).  Ann recently released a cookbook called “The Romney Family Table: Sharing Home-Cooked Recipes and Favorite Traditions,” and she has been traveling across the country to share stories about her new book.  She was incredibly warm and relaxed as she spoke and she shared many insights on what life was like during the Presidential Campaign.  For those who are not aware, Ann Romney suffers from MS and her health was a constant concern during the election as putting herself in stressful situations was one of the worst things possible for someone with her disease.  She shared stories of the ups and the downs of what they went through together.  As she spoke I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would ever want to subject themselves to the constant tearing down that people go through when they decide to go into politics.  Running for office is such a brutal process because candidates have to put themselves and their families through playing defense to constant attacks on their life and their family.  I can’t imagine how difficult that must be for those families to go through.  All I can say is that I have a tremendous amount of respect for those people who are willing to put themselves out there.

For lunch they served Ann’s meatloaf and I have to say it was quite good. Then each of us were given a copy of her cookbook.  I love when people are willing to share their recipes!  Finding good recipes is literally one of the most difficult things to do when you first get married and start cooking for two.  I think it is so stressful to cook because you have to come up with good recipes and in my experience I have found that most people are unwilling to share the recipes for their best dishes.  They look at them as their secret sauce, their personal treasures that makes them a good cook and they are hesitant to share them with anyone else.  So for those of us who don’t have someone who passes recipes down to us, we are stuck scouring through the internet or through cookbooks trying to find a recipe that people actually like.

Why hoard your best recipes?  Wouldn’t it be so much better to share them with the world so we could all appreciate your amazing dish?  Sharing is so much better than hoarding!  Share those treasures people….SHARE!

Here is what I wish – I wish everyone out there would post at least one of their very best, most amazing recipes as a comment to today’s blog sot that all of us could have a copy so we could all have a bunch of amazing recipes.  SHARE PEOPLE!! SHARE!!  And if you want the notoriety of being a good cook then name your dish with your own name – like “Amy’s Awesome Pot Roast”.  Now in my case I actually use my mother’s pot roast recipe but since I am the one posting it I get to name it by my name 🙂  .  This is my family’s favorite dish I make.

Amy’s Awesome Pot Roast and Gravy

1 Rump Roast (buy whatever size fits best for your family)

Take the Rump Roast and put it into a frying pan just long enough to brown each side of the roast (takes just a few minutes)

Place the Rump Roast into a Roasting Pan. Pour 1 or 2 packets (depending on the size of your roast) of Lipton’s Onion Recipe Soup & Dip Mix (Dry Powder Mix) over the top of the Roast. 

Optional:  You can add some pealed baby carrots and peeled potatoes into the pan, just placed around the sides of the roast if you like.  

Next, fill the roasting pot up with water until the water is covering about 2/3 of the roast.  Then place tin foil over the top of the roasting pan and fold it down to seal it, then place the lid of the roasting pan on and place it in the oven.

Cook the roast at 325 degrees for 6-8 hours (the longer the better to make it the most tender).

When the roast is done lift the meat from the roasting pan and place it on a serving dish.  Remove any carrots and potatoes from the pan and place them in serving dishes.  Then place a strainer over another sauce pan and pour the water from the roasting pan through the strainer and into another sauce pan.  You can throw out the items stopped by the strainer.

Place the water now in your saucepan on the stove and turn the heat to high. 

In a bowl take flour and mix in enough water to make a smooth mixture.  The amount of flour to mix with water depends on how much water is in your saucepan.  I usually start my flour mix with about 1 or 2 cups of flour, mix that with water, and slowly start to pour this liquid flour mix into the saucepan that contains the water from the roast.  This liquid flour mix is to help thicken your roast water into a gravy.  Stir continually over the heat and as the gravy starts to boil it will thicken even more.  I usually pour just enough liquid flour mix in to make the sheen go away on the top of the roast water (sorry I am not sure how to better describe that but when you try and make it you will see the shine on the water start to go away as you pour the liquid flour in). 

Once my gravy is the right thickness I mix only three spices in – I put in a little normal salt, a little pepper, and a LOT of Lawry’s Seasoning Salt.   Lawry’s seasoning salt is the absolute key to Amazing Gravy!  It is really all you need to make your gravy taste incredible.  I shake some in, stir, and then dip a piece of bread into the gravy to get a taste of it and see if it needs more Lawry’s added or not. 

Then serve the roast and potatoes and carrots and pour tons of gravy over the meat. The meat will literally fall apart as you touch it with your fork.  My kids prefer mashed potatoes to boiled potatoes so I usually mash my potatoes up to serve them and we pour gravy on them. 

I hope you enjoy my Pot Roast and Gravy dinner and I hope you will all be generous to share your recipe treasures with me in return!  I need all the yummy recipes I can get and hopefully so do all of you!

~Amy

4 Comments

  • Yeshi says:

    Hi Amy! I am a huge fan of your blog. I read it religiously. This post is my favorite so far! Why? Because I run a whole blog in which I share recipes with pictures of every step, to make it as easy as possible for everyone to cook 🙂 If you have time, do take a look at it. http://www.mybutterhalf.com

  • Jenney says:

    Jenney’s Delicious Sweet Potato Casserole (OK, it’s really Ruth’s Chris)

    Crust:
    1 c brown sugar
    1/3 c flour
    1 c chopped pecans
    1/3 stick butter, melted.

    Combine in bowl and set aside.

    Potatoes:
    3 c mashed yams
    1 c sugar
    ½ tsp salt
    1 tsp vanilla
    2 eggs, well beaten
    1 stick melted butter

    Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine potatoes, sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs, and butter in mixing bowl in order listed. Mix thoroughly using electric mixer (2-3 minutes). Pour mix into buttered baking dish. Sprinkle surface with crust mixture. Bake for 30 minutes. Let set for 30 minutes before serving.

  • Lesli says:

    I like the valuable information you provide in your articles.
    I’ll bookmark your blog and check again here regularly.

    I’m quite certain I’ll learn many new stuff right here!
    Good luck for the next!

  • Janie says:

    Hello, all is going sound here and ofcourse every one is sharing information, that’s genuinely excellent, keep up writing.

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