My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday and it was like most typical weekend days for me. I cooked, cleaned and spent time with my bf. I enjoy the simplicity. For my birthday we did take Katsu to the dog park...his second visit ever. Now that he is neutered, chipped and feeling tons better, I feel only slightly better about his off leash play...you see Katsu doesn't have the greatest recall skill. We are working on it. I look at it this way at least at the dog park he can run and play in relative safety.

So last nights dinner was a new recipe that I spied online a few weeks back and I have wanted to try. I love meals that cook up in the crock pot. I consider it a form of torture to have the aroma of fantastic food wafting through the house all day long. Not to mention the simplicity of not having a ton of pots and pans to clean up before, during and after the dinner.

You start with a crock pot...then after you take the photo you wash the crock pot again because someone didn't get it clean the last time they used it...me.

Into the crockpot you add one 14oz can of diced tomatoes with the juice.

Then you add some fresh Thyme (about 1 or 2 teaspoons), one medium diced onion, two cloves minced garlic and roughly one small can of tomato paste (if you use the whole can of tomato paste I would add a little red wine). Give it a good stir to combine with the tomatoes.

You can used a chuck roast, but I happened to have an arm roast on hand. I cut the bone out (fed the marrow to the chupacabra who was watching me intently) placed the roast on the top of the tomato mixture in the crock pot. Liberally salt and pepper the meat

Put on the lid and set it to cook for 8 hours on low. That's it. Done. When the dish is done cooking go in with a couple of forks and pull apart any large chunks of meat that remain.

Doesn't that look amazing? To finish this dish you take a 1/2 cup of fresh chopped basil, zest from one small lemon and a drizzle one or two tablespoons of olive oil and toss together in a small bowl.

Place the meat and sauce on top of hot pasta and the basil topping on top of the meat followed with some fresh grated cheese. See doesn't that look amazing? Don't forget the crusty bread...Yum. Perfect dinner. I used trottolle pasta. It is fun and interesting.

What's a birthday without a birthday cake? So I did not make my own birthday cake...everyone was surprised about that, but I did get a really nice tiramisu cake from a local bakery...It was really quite good...seriously who bakes there own birthday cake?

My kids were here for dinner last night which was nice...thanks D.H. and D.C. for washing the dishes and tidying up the kitchen for me. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. We are off to a family gathering today, and I was smart enough to take a day off tomorrow to spend some time with me.