Not videos, but what made me a better cook was… you know… cooking. :)

I bought a really cool braising pan and wanted to find a good use for it.

Googling around, I found a couple of good recipes for chuck roast, so I combined them and made it myself. No video. Learn by doing! I never used a braising pan before or cooked a beef roast before.

Here’s what I did:

1 pack of bacon, diced and cooked in olive oil on medium high until the edges were brown, then removed.

In the same pan, 2 diced carrots, 2 diced celery stalks, 2 diced Walla Walla sweet onions. Cooked on medium high until carmaelized, then removed.

3.37 pound boneless chuck roast. Patted dry, heavily salted and peppered, seared on one side for 5 minutes, flipped and then seared on the other side for 5 minutes and removed.

Added back 1/2 cup Grand Marnier and 2 cups of Malbec Wine. Deglazed the pan scraping up all the brown bits.

Put the bacon back in, put the veggies back in, stirred until well distributed. Added bay leaves, thyme and rosemary, several cloves of minced garlic, topped with the meat.

Brought to a boil then placed in a pre-heated 325° oven for 3 hours.

After 3 hours, beef was to temp and easily shreddable. (Finally! A reason to use the meat claws!) Resting on stove top while I cook some pasta to go with it.

Pasta was super simple. Boiled water and salt, cooked a bag of egg noodles for 8 or 9 minutes. Drained, removed, then melted a stick of butter in the pot, added a small container of heavy cream, added rosemary and thyme, brought it to a simmer then popped the pasta back in and cooked a couple of minutes.