Roast Spread

Being that we ranch, we always have a ready supply of good ranch raised beef in our deep freeze and although we do change things up with chicken and pork and fish, beef is on the menu often. We have it cut to order which for us means very lean 2# packages of ground beef, big 5-7# roasts, 2 steaks per package, lean stew meat, trimmed briskets, tenderized round steaks, ribs, and skirt and flank steaks.  I love to grill so hamburgers, steaks, and fajitas are easy and quick to throw together for dinner at noon. We get a lot of roasts, so I've gotten good at using those and I love cooking them in the pressure cooker.

(I have THIS one - I ordered it a few years ago when Judy, over at Patchwork Times, clued us in about it being a Black Friday special - watch her - she's always sharing great ideas and gadgets that I didn't even know existed. If I had a neighbor, I'd want it to be her.)

It allows me to brown my meat before cooking and that adds an extra layer of flavor that makes a big difference. I'll cook them for about 100 minutes and they are just fall apart tender.

1.Sometimes we just eat it as roast...must have horseradish with it.

2. Sometimes I shred it and add green chile and onions and that makes a great filling in tortillas.

3. Shred it and simmer with barbecue sauce for barbecue sandwiches.

4. Make Roast Spread. I've tried to come up with a better name for it, but my MIL has made this forever - long before I ever came into the family - and it's always been known as Roast Spread. It's really just like Tuna or Chicken Salad so I guess you could call it Roast Salad, but if I called it that here, everyone would wonder what I was talking about.

After it's cooked and falling apart, I put it into my handy dandy Oskar:

I'm not a gadget girl at all. I've managed to cook and bake and feed my family without a food processor or Kitchen-aid for over 30 years so I figure I really don't need one, but DH bought me this little Oskar before we were married and it has been the handiest little thing. I guess it's kind of a mini food processor. It's yellowed with age and the bowl is cloudy, but that blade is still unbelievably sharp and if a much used kitchen gadget is still going strong after 30+ years, it gets a gold star in my book!

I use it to chop nuts...lots of pecans, and to grind up Oreos for a couple of desserts I make, it grates cheese (we do not care for the grated cheese that comes in packages and I mostly hand grate our cheese, but if I need a lot, I use Oskar), same for a lot of onions, and I use it to grind up roast for Roast Spread. I don't grind it up completely, just a quick run through to break it up a bit.

Then I just add mayo, a little finely chopped onion, finely chopped celery, and a couple of big spoonfuls of pickle relish and mix.

Not fancy, but I don't do fancy, and we all love it.