Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Slower Cooker Shredded BBQ Beef on Homemade Whole Wheat Buns

It's been quite some time since I wrote about food, or about anything for that matter.  I guess I've succumbed to the craziness of life lately.  But tonight I just wanted to share a super easy and delicious meal that we just finished devouring and I just finished cleaning up.  Man is it a lot of work to feed a family of 5 three times a day. PHEW!

I get the base for my BBQ Beef recipe on Allrecipes.com, from this entry by someone named Kathy.  I also use Allrecipes.com for the base of my Whole Wheat Sandwich Rolls.  Here are my customized versions of the recipes, which are both a super big hit with the family.


Slow Cooker Shredded BBQ Beef

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 pounds chuck roast
1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce
1/2 of a large sweet onion, chopped
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 cubes beef bouillon
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon mustard powder
2 TBS Worcestershire sauce

1. Put the beef into the crock pot and sprinkle with the flour.  Add all the other ingredients on top of the beef.  Try to stir everything up as best you can, or give it an hour to meld together and then stir. Cover and cook on high for 8 hours or low for 14 hours.  If I'm home I like to give the sauce a stir once in a while, basting the meat, but it's not absolutely necessary.
 
2. At the end of the cooking time take the piece of beef out and shred with a fork (remove any large pieces of fat and discard).  Put the shredded beef back into the crock pot and stir to incorporate with the bubbly BBQ sauce.  Serve on homemade whole wheat buns (below), or with your favorite sandwich bread and a few slices of cheese.


Homemade Whole Wheat Sandwich Rolls

1 1/4 cups warm milk
1/4 cup honey
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons coconut oil OR butter, softened
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

2 tablespoons butter, to baste on top of hot rolls

1. Place the warmed milk and honey into a large bowl.  Add the yeast and let proof (sit) for 10 minutes.  While waiting, combine the two types of flour and salt in a separate bowl and set aside.


2. Add the coconut oil (or butter) and the beaten egg to the proofed yeast mixture and combine. If you are using a stand mixer, use your dough hook to mix everything together.  If you are going to be kneading by hand then just combine with a wooden spoon.

3. Add the flour mixture to your wet ingredients a cup at a time, combining well between each cup.  Once all the flour is incorporated let the stand mixer knead the dough for 7-10 minutes or if doing it by hand then I think it would be about 20 minutes of kneading.  I always seem to need a little more flour, but that could be just the humidity here.  You'll have to judge whether or not your dough needs more as it's kneading.

4.  Turn the dough into a lighted oiled bowl and then cover and let rise until doubled.  After doubled, punch down the dough and turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out 3/4 inch thick. Cut out rolls with a 3 to 4 inch diameter biscuit cutter. Place on lightly greased cookie sheets; cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.  If you want to make dinner rolls instead of sandwich rolls then you can shape the dough into rolls and place on the pan to rise.  I've done both ways and they turn out fantastic no matter how they look.

5. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).  Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes. When rolls are finished baking, smear with butter. 

I serve these BBQ Beef sandwiches with sweet potato fries and a big fruit salad.  A great spring/summer meal to come home to after work.  It's even better if you make the buns the night before.  And I always double my roll batch so that I have enough to last for a few days or freeze for later.  Super easy!

I hope you get the chance to try out these recipes, they are so delicious!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Bow Hair Clip Holder/Organizer and Flower Clips

I had to come up with a gift for a girls birthday party with one day notice.  Normally I would run to Fred Meyer, but the kids have been having a rough week and I didn't want to drag them out.  So I used what I had on hand and came up with a gift that hopefully was fun for her.  I used a spare frame I had, and mod podged it with some bright pink fabric.  Then I covered the glass with some coordinating knit fabric and hot glued the ribbons to the front.  I used this tutorial from Make It and Love It.

Then I made a couple of flower clips using the same coordinating fabrics and little pink beads.  I used this tutorial as my guide, although I hit some snags when it came time to attach the clips to the flowers.  There are NO good tutorials out there that explain how to do this without using hot glue.  I have some hot glue gunned clips and they just never hold up over time.  So I wanted to sew them onto the flowers and I had to just wing it.  I eventually got it to work, yeah!

The pictures I took are all terrible, my apologies once again! :)

I did enjoy making the little clips so I think I'll add making some for Addison to my ridiculous to do project list.  Linking up with SEW AND TELL over at Amy Lou Who this week.  Yeah!