Dollar A Day Meals

Recently I bought a pot roast on sale for  $5.11,  it was under 3 pounds. Wanted to see how many meals we could get from that. Ended up with 5 meals. Of course the roast beef meal cost more than the others,  but soup or stew with homemade bread indeed makes for a terrific meal.  Cost-wise for the meat: I estimate the    pot roast meal at $.90 per person; better than any dollar burger    at a fast food place, and more meat. It had been a while since I'd seen  pot  roast  on  sale!   That  leaves  meat / beef  broth in the remaining meals at  just over  $.09 per serving.   We could have,    of course,  used all the meat and broth frugally, but having roast   for dinner at under a dollar per serve  is certainly  a lovely treat. Consider before spending:  what we could have spent on one $5 pizza, gave us meat and broth for five great meals.

Crock Pot Roast Beef

The secret here is in preparation.  Put a large fry pan on high heat, have roast ready to sear. Add  a little  oil  if  needed.  Place meat in fry pan and sear each side until deeply browned (it won't be evenly browned,  but that is okay....do be very careful not  to burn it while searing).   Turn crock pot on low, put in roast.   Add  2 cups of hot water to the fry pan / rinse out any brown bits  and pour over roast    in crock pot, add 6 to 7 more cups hot water to roast. Sprinkle with garlic salt,  add a couple of slices  of chopped onion  to  the  water.  Cover, cook 7 hours, or until  fork tender.  The  broth  should  be a lovely brown color  from searing the meat.  Turn off crock pot when roast is done,  let sit  for  15  minutes covered.   Then remove cover,   let sit for 10 minutes uncovered. Roast will be very tender. Carefully cut off  about 1/3 of the meat and  leave in cooking liquids. Carefully remove remaining 2/3 roast to a plate and let it cool for 10 minutes. This made four servings for us.  We served it with sides of mashed potatoes and green beans.  Also used one cup of the cooking liquids   + half cup water to make brown gravy.

Cooled, and refrigerated remaining 1/3 roast and the lovely cooking liquids over night.   The  next  day,   removed the piece of roast and cubed it, which was over  2 generous cups. I then divided the broth:  3 cups  for  a very good wheat/beef  soup  +  half  of  the  cut  meat,  enough for two meals (4 servings per meal);  and  remaining  broth (almost a quart)  + the other half of cut meat  for a beefy vegetable stew, also enough for two meals (4 servings per meal).  Because the broth was so deeply browned I was able to add water when making the soup and stew without compromising flavor.   (Made  the  soups  and when done and  taken  off  heat, added the cut meat as I didn't want it to cook more/get 'string-y' since it was already so tender).