Hi blog buds! As promised, here’s my recap of that philly cheese steak crockpot recipe I mentioned wanting to try in the last Recipes to Inspire post.
It started out so well.
Sliced up my organic green bell pepper and onion…
Cleaned, de-scaled and cut my 2 big portobello mushrooms…
Selected an organic grass fed top round for Cory…
Sliced it so nicely…
Added everything in the crockpot with the listed seasonings and spices, turned it on, and sped off to work. When I came home last night, it smelled wonderful.
Loaded it all up onto hollowed out whole wheat rolls from Whole Foods. My veggie version with some goat cheese and his meat-only version with some organic white cheddar just out of the broiler and ready to eat our fun little Valentine’s Day meal.
And then it all went downhill.
It was TERRIBLE!!! Don’t you just hate it when you follow a recipe to a T and it just doesn’t come out how you’d hoped? Nothing against the recipe writer because who knows what went wrong. Maybe my crockpot runs hotter, or is smaller or something else was different. But this meal had ZERO flavor. The vegetables tasted like I’d boiled them in water, and that expensive top round was bland and DRY! (How something becomes so dry when cooking in low, moist heat I will never understand.)
After a few bites of mine, I actually tossed it in the trash and ate an avocado instead. Cory finished his, but only after he doctored it with some BBQ sauce and the rest went in the dogs’ bowls with their dinner.
Looking back on in, I’m not even sure why I decided to try this recipe. If I’d just taken the same ingredients and sauteed them, it would have taken about 3 minutes more than I spent prepping this anyway. I’m rarely satisfied with crockpot meals and I know this – but somehow the ‘idea’ of coming home to a finished meal always nabs me and I try again. Mrs. Crockpot, I am moving you back to the basement storage where you belong.
These are the days I joke that I need to hire myself for one day a week. 
However, Valentine’s Day itself was not a bust.
Cory picks great cards. And we had a really fun evening playing Monopoly against each other on our iPhones. Aren’t we romantic? 
(I sound like I’m joking, but we had a BLAST!)
***
Do you use a crockpot? Love it or hate it?
– Shari B. =)
#1 by Joan on February 15, 2012 - 7:39 pm
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Well I don’t feel so bad…I made it too but I tweaked it soooo much I figured it was my uber-tweaking that made it taste so bad I tossed it out too. I DO love my crock pot especially for my yummy vege chili recipe and 2 baked beans recipes I use it for which can be done while I’m gone and not in the oven. Also I cook my dry beans that way…no soaking, no standing over the stove whilst simmering…just drop them in (soaked overnight or not) and they are done when you get home from work for what ever you’d planned them for.
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#2 by allison @ thesundayflog on February 15, 2012 - 7:22 pm
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that’s pretty much his signature dish
i also wanted to add…that animal welfare rating of FOUR is FANTASTIC for your steak!!!!
#3 by Shari B. on February 22, 2012 - 9:05 am
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HI Allison! I love that Whole Foods does that rating system. I totally buy the highest number I can find. Do you ever see chicken higher than 2 at your end of the country? I really would love to find 5′s across the board!
#4 by Carrie on February 15, 2012 - 2:15 pm
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I, too, am not a huge crockpot fan! It seems that any meat that I cook in it, comes out dry and bland, like you experienced. And the veggies come out very limpy. I’d rather sear the meat and veggies over high heat to brown them and then stick everything in a dutch oven and put it in my regular oven for 2-3 hours. THEN, everything is moist and yummy. I have a cookbook full of crockpot recipes, but at this point, I should just get rid of it because I truly never use it!
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#5 by Shari B. on February 15, 2012 - 2:54 pm
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Hi Carrie! I love my Dutch oven too! Getting rid of cookbooks is a good idea – wow my bookshelf could stand to be ‘cleansed’ a bit! I’ve got too many that I just don’t use anymore! Maybe we should host a cookbook exchange on FitFeat!
#6 by Heidi K on February 15, 2012 - 1:29 pm
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Bummer! Those look delicious anyways, but I can imagine the veggies wouldn’t have the right flavor cooking in the crock pot like that. I bet it would have been better if the ingredients were sauteed or grilled prior to putting them in the crock pot. I love my crock pot for soups and sauces, but I do saute most of my veggies before they go in. Sorry they didn’t turn out well!
Heidi K recently posted..In the Blink of an Eye
#7 by Shari B. on February 15, 2012 - 3:00 pm
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Hi Heidi! Acccckkkk, I totally know. As I was putting it all in the crockpot I even thought to myself that there just wasn’t enough stuff listed in the ingredients to give it much flavor and considered messing with it to boost it. Recipes are just guidelines, and even my culinary training taught me that – you have to follow your own cooking instinct. But the “rule following” side of me gets suckered in sometimes and I don’t know why!! It’s like coloring outside the lines! LOL!
#8 by Cindy on February 15, 2012 - 12:54 pm
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SERIOUSLY not sure how that came out bad!
I used to love to crock pot but don’t use one anymore.
Sorry your Valentine’s Dinner was a bomb…it sure looked yummy!
Glad you had a great day anyways!
xoxoxo
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#9 by Shari B. on February 15, 2012 - 3:01 pm
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Hi Cindy! I will tell you this – not much beats a perfectly ripe avocado sprinkled with pepper and a small glass of red wine (what I had after I tossed out my plate!)
So in that regard, dinner was great! Sometimes simple just works. In the case of the crockpot recipe, it didn’t. But with the avocado, oh yeah!
#10 by allison @ thesundayflog on February 15, 2012 - 12:46 pm
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awhhhh man this philly girl could have told you that!!! such a shame, because they looked delicious! steve made me dinner last night, which is only the 2nd time he has in 3 years of dating! and dont worry – we play games against each other on our iphones all the time!
allison @ thesundayflog recently posted..From the Kitchen: Quinoa Breakfast Porridge
#11 by Shari B. on February 15, 2012 - 3:03 pm
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Allison – when I make it out your way, you have to take me for a REAL Philly Cheese Steak. I’ll even eat the MEAT one!!
So sweet that Steve made dinner for you! Nice! Does he have a favorite dish to make?