About a month ago, my range died. Well, two of the burners still worked, pretty much (though both had horrendous ‘hot spots’), but the oven stopped heating up at all.
After much planning for meals that could be cooked in the Crock Pot, on the stove top, in the microwave, or in the toaster oven, I finally got a new range. A Kenmore Elite.
Then, yesterday, at an ‘off-price’ store, I bought one of those roasting pans that has an insert that allows you to sit a turkey, roasting chicken, pot roast, etc. into the rack and have it roast without sitting in all the grease.
So, I’ve got this new oven, and I’ve got this new roasting pan, and I’d like to plan something impressive (reasonably impressive; I’m not Gordon Ramsay!) for dinner next weekend. So, what should it be? A turkey? A chicken? A pot roast?
I didn’t pay much attention, but I think he did this:
Put a de-boned 7-bone roast into a roasting pan. Sprinkle with a packet of Lipton Onion Soup Mix. Pour on a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup. Arrange the following (segregated) around the meat: pealed and quartered russet potatoes, peeled carrots cut about two inches long, onion wedges, thick slices of green bell pepper, canned button mushrooms. Roast in the oven until it’s done.
Yeah, soup mix, canned soup, and canned mushrooms. It’s how his generation did it. But I thought it was good, and I wish he were here to cook some now.
Well, yeah, scoff at the envelope of soup and the canned cream of mushroom if you want, but maybe I’m closer to his generation than yours; I still use canned cream soups as “short cuts” in cooking sometimes.
The pot roast actually sounds pretty darned good! I would use fresh mushrooms, and switch out red or yellow bell peppers for the green. Might use pearl onions instead of wedged onions, too.