Dixie's French Dip Sandwiches

I rarely share recipes here, but I wanted to share the one I made yesterday so that I can find it again. I will surprise you next week with a post about ART.

On Thursday I made a Balsamic Pot Roast recipe. It was all right. Too balsamic-y, and missing some onion flavor. I made it because of the fabulous photo the blogger used.

I decided to try again on Friday, and looking at several recipes, came up with this combo, which is very good! The bread is important, these rolls are made by the Brick Oven Bangor Rye Bakery and are my favorite rolls to buy.


Dixie's French Dip Pot Roast 
in the Slow Cooker

Ingredients:

Chuck Roast
Lowry's Seasoning Salt
4-5 onions, sliced in thick slabs

Ingredients for Sauce for Cooking:

1 cup low sodium beef broth reduced to half by boiling on stove
Two Pinches dried rosemary
Two pinches ground sage
Two pinches thyme leaves
Bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
1/3 cup of good balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons low sodium Worcestershire sauce
1 - 2 tablespoons honey
A teeny squirt of Syrachi hot sauce (or your favorite hot sauce)
A teeny squirt of dijon or brown mustard
3 cloves of garlic, chopped

Sprinkle Lowry's seasoning salt on the roast top and bottom. Then brown the roast in a skillet on both sides till the meat is mahogany colored. I did this on medium high in a cast iron skillet.

While the roast is browning, boil the beef broth until it is reduced in volume by half.

Cut onions into thick slabs and place on bottom of crockpot or slow cooker. You can leave them in slabs, or break them apart into rings.

When roast is browned, put in on top of onions in the crockpot. Add the bay leaf.

Mix the rest of the ingredients into a sauce and pour over the meat. Set the crockpot to LOW, cover it and do other stuff for 7-9 hours.

Remove meat, shredding with two forks. Pour juices into a liquid fat separator, and save the juices, discarding the fat. Put on Brick Oven rolls with Gouda cheese and your choice of condiments and some of the juice to dip the sandwich in.

Serve with a salad and this wonderful Green Goddess Dressing, but substitute plain greek yogurt for the sour cream to save on calories.

Interesting Izannah Walker Doll Article

Those of you who are interested in Izannah Walker dolls will want to read the latest article by Monica Bessette which is posted on the Izannah Walker Chronicles.  Elaine Sarnoff contacted me, hoping to get Monica's contact information.  I got them connected, and this information on this doll resulted in a wonderful article.  Hooray for the Internet!

~ Dixie Redmond

Certainteed Vinyl Siding Update: Barn Red Discontinued, Autumn Red is the New Red

Certainted Barn Red - old discontinued color

It has been hard lately to find time for art-making.  Wait, that's not quite right.  It has been hard to find enthusiasm and energy for art-making.  In times like this it is good to make a list of the non-creative aspects of art making.  Things like "trace and sew a pair of doll legs" or "gesso a canvas".  These are things that usually take under 1/2 an hour and that is something which can be done with kids.  Breaking large tasks into smaller tasks means you can complete something.  Today is "trace and sew legs" day.

Another thing I want to do is to try and paint with Alex.   Nothing that is too ambitious, just colors on a canvas.  I am looking for things he and I can enjoy together.

And finally, we got word from Certainteed that they would replace the siding on the back of the house.  But the color we originally used has been discontinued, so they said that in this instance they would replace all the siding on the house.  That is what I am talking about!

Certainteed Autumn Red

It seems the dark colors invite more of this kind of siding distortion on sunny sides.  So we have been considering a different color for that reason.   I really do love the old Barn Red color.  The autumn red (above) is much more brown and dull.  Not lovin' it.  Here are some other options.  I'm exploring a couple other ideas as well.  You can read all the other posts about Certainteed Red Vinyl Siding here.  http://www.northdixiedesigns.com/search/label/Certainteed%20Vinyl%20Siding

Certainteed Desert Tan

Certainteed Savannah Wicker 

Certainteed Natural Clay

~ Dixie Redmond

Endings and Beginnings

Endings are a part of life, as are beginnings. School has ended for my oldest and it is a beginning of life beyond school. Right now, because of a lack of funding for programs, this means life at home with mom. We are trying to figure out what the next steps are. Transitions are hard, and for people who like to know what to expect even harder. Transitions come in all sizes, from heading out the door to deciding a direction in life.


Our lives were centered around the structure of school. Leaving that structure and its built in friend opportunities is a kind of loss. But school ending is also a kind of gain. So much energy and so many choices were focused on helping my son be at his best for school, energy-wise and emotionally. Sometimes we would not do good things because we knew it would leave him too tired for school. School, with all of its transitions, used the majority of the energy for a day. The bright side of school ending is we don't have to curtail other things to save up energy for school.

My friend Jan Conwell shared this thought with me on Facebook, and I really liked it. She said,

"I have a favorite author who said something to the effect of; the most interesting parts of life grow out of those margin areas, where one thing is ending and another beginning...the overlap is fertile ground."

The ground is really, really, really fertile right now. Time to plant some seeds.