A super simple recipe that not only ensures dinner will be ready and your home will smell amazing when you walk in the door at day's end -- but it also uses up your leftover red wine.
“No one believes you ever have leftover red wine, Jennifer." - everyone
Ingredients:
2 1/2 to 3-lb. chuck roast (also called a chuck tender roast)
5 cloves fresh garlic
1 cup red wine (I used a cheap port -- a cab or pinot will also work just fine)
1 Tablespoon dried basil
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Water
Preparation:
Place roast in slow-cooker. Mix basil, thyme, marjoram, salt and pepper in a bowl. Sprinkle half of spices over roast -- then flip it and sprinkle with the other half of spices. Throw garlic cloves into crockpot. Mix wine with 1/4 cup of water and pour over and around the roast.
Cook & Serve:
Cook in crockpot on low for 8-10 hours, depending on the size of roast. Test the done-ness by stabbing with a fork and twisting -- the beef should shred apart with hardly any effort.
This is a versatile beef that freezes well and gets you through a variety of meals. Shred the beef and serve on buns with hot sauce and a slice of provolone and peppers (picture below). Or serve on a bed of mashed potatoes and chives, using the red wine juices like gravy. Or serve the shredded beef on a loaded baked potato, with shredded cheddar cheese and broccoli. Or mix with cooked rice and cooked vegetables of your choosing (I'd go with something colorful and yummy like sliced red and yellow peppers, plus whole green beans).
A Little Backstory:
Seriously, I had an immense amount of leftover wine from Thanksgiving. If you look up my recipe for cranberry sauce on this site, you'll see it uses a tiny amount of tawny port wine. Of course, being the budget-conscious woman I am, I thought "why buy the little bottle of port when the 1.5 Liter bottle is such a better deal and I'll drink it anyway!" Second mistake: Buying the 1.5 Liter bottle that is not fit for drinking. I tried, you guys. It's not a pairing problem -- I tried serving the port with steak, dessert, dark chocolate ... even nachos so spicy it would dull the taste of the wine. My conclusion is this is just a shitty bottle of cooking wine. Hence recipes like this, that use red wine by the cupful. Waste not, want not.
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