EARLY JUNE:THE STUDIO KITCHEN AND THE BEST ROAST BEEF, EVAH!

Food Mood: Uh, what? Ok… I wasn’t ready for that 

Reno Ridiculouso: The Great Divide! The Hubby preps the house for the renovation by essentially dividing it in half

Hubby has been gearing up for this renovation for a long time, slowly taking off sections of the back entry, prepping materials and organizing the garage while researching contractors.  He and I have worked on choosing trades since early February and have put a great deal of thought and care into the selection.  Hubby will be the main contractor, coordinating the trades, picking up materials, organizing the order of operations and maintaining the budget.  As he used to run a contracting company this isn’t hard for him.  We’ve planned that he’ll have June, July and part of August off work which is the shut down time for his regular job anyways.  

So, the title “What a Crock…” has probably already tipped you off that this isn’t a sunshine and rainbows, fluffy bunnies kinda’ story.  It’s reaaaaallly not.  However, in the beginning all was well as, I suppose, is always the way.  We did check references and work, ask lots of questions of contractors and receive detailed responses about how they would do the work. Our architect and engineer (oh yes, wait for it, it gets bad enough to need an engineer. This ain’t your low level chaos) I had worked with extensively. The main contractor that we selected (hereafter know as Bull Talker Contractor, Bull Talker or just plain, Bull) met our architect and he too felt good about him and that he was knowledgeable and capable.  And he was.  Until he chose not to be.  But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

We have been preparing and discussing the reno forever so I don’t know why on this not yet so warm May day it surprised me so much to arrive home, enter my house and discover that it ended abruptly in the hallway.  Stepping into the living room I was stunned to discover the open doorway to the kitchen filled in, painted the same colour as the surrounding walls and that a studio kitchen had been installed on this newly rebuilt wall.  “What, the what???!”  I mean, I knew that we would be creating some kind of barrier into the construction area but we’d never actually discussed that we were fully dividing our main floor in two!  And paint, and pictures hung too!?  What the hell???  It looked like we lived in a studio apartment.

The beloved, espresso coloured kitchen cabinets with nickel pulls were now installed in MY LIVING ROOM!!  With their original granite counter tops on top.  “What in heaven’s name…” .  Now, hubby has a bit of a habit of overdoing a job, but this was ridiculous!  Granted it was just a bunch of cabinets and a counter top, there was no running water.  But, there, yes, was my brand new lg fridge, installed in the living room before the access to the back half of the house was closed up. What in God’s name??  This must have taken him all day!.  And at that moment I waffled between gratitude that my sweet, dear Hubby would put this much work into making me a space to cook, fear that he felt I needed this much of a space set up, and frustration that he would spend the time on it.  Get to work on the damned reno for heaven’s sake, don’t build a whole new kitchen that we don’t need!  Little did I know that I would be living with this kitchen for the next year.  

Anyhow, as it caught me completely off guard, I had thawed an organic, grass fed roast of beef the night before in order to clear up some of the meat out of the big freezer. I looked in the fridge.  Yep, there was the beef that had been in the old fridge, now in the new one along with everything else.  I looked around my studio kitchen.  No stove.  No kettle as we had a stove top variety prior to this.  Just a microwave.  And a crockpot.  Huh.  Ok, then.  Let’s figure this shit out.

Crockpot Balsamic Beef

1 roast beef ( I never really know how big mine is.  It was big.  I dunno know, 2.5 pounds maybe.  Roast beef size. Honestly it doesn’t really matter when you’re crockpot cooking, you’re not going to cook a rare roast.  Get over it!  Right now!  There, you see, that’s better)

1 cup of beef broth (either from a box or from cube is fine.  I usually use no salt campbells boxed)

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar (just the ordinary stuff, nothin’ fancy)

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp soy sauce

A bunch of chopped garlic too taste (somewhere between 1 and 5 cloves)

Mix together all the saucy stuff and put it over the beef in the crockpot.  Cook for six to eight hours.  Take the beef out and slice up.  Skim the fat off the jus that is left and ladle it on top. 

The Kiddo liked the jus of this so much that she spooned it over our deli counter cooked chicken two nights later too.