Mushroom Gravy over Slow Cooked Roast Beast... er, Beef

Download a free, printable version of this and many other recipes at www.susanmallery.com/recipes.php!

I’ve made roast beef in the slow cooker before (Slow Cooked Beef with Garlic and Red Wine, Slow Cooker Cheesy Beef, and Slow Cooker Java Roast, but this time, I decided to put the focus on the gravy. Could I come up with a delicious, hearty gravy using juices from the slow cooker? The answer is yes! And best of all, there are lots of chopped mushrooms in the gravy, which means you don’t have to worry about lumps. It’s supposed to be lumpy!

I decided to skip my usual step of searing the beef in a cast iron pan before putting it in the slow cooker. I wanted to see if it really made a difference. Honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference at all. Certainly not enough to warrant the extra dish washing. So there was no fussing at all in the pre-cooking stage, but because of the gravy, there was a slight amount of fussing afterward. I’d say it took 30 minutes from the time I removed the beef from the slow cooker until we were eating it – although that was partly because I needed to take a picture. And what a festive picture it is! You can see my Christmas tree in the background.

Mushroom Gravy over Slow Cooked Roast Beef

1 4-pound roast beef
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 envelope onion soup mix
2 t Worcestershire sauce
3 cloves garlic
1 medium onion, sliced thick
8 oz whole mushrooms
Black pepper to taste
2 T vegetable oil
2 T flour

Place the onion slices on the bottom of the slow cooker, and put the roast on top of them. Mix together the soup, soup mix, and Worcestershire sauce. Spread over the beef. Toss the mushrooms and garlic on top of everything. Sprinkle with fresh ground black pepper. Cover and cook on low heat for about 8 hours.

Remove the roast from the slow cooker and set aside. Remove the mushrooms to a cutting board and mince. Pour the liquid through a strainer. You’ll need 2 to 2 ½ cups of liquid. If you don’t have enough, supplement with water or beef broth.

In a small, heavy-bottomed sauce pan, heat the oil. Toss in the flour and stir to coat. In small increments, add 2 cups of beefy liquid, stirring well to break up the flour. Heat to a simmer, stirring frequently. Once the gravy is thickened, add the minced mushrooms. If the gravy is too thick, add more beefy liquid in small increments until the consistency is what you like. Serve with mashed potatoes.

Slow Cooker Java Roast

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ONLY HIS was released last week and, as always on release week, I feel the need to treat myself, more as a distraction than a celebration. As I write this, I’m still waiting to find out whether ONLY HIS will hit the New York Times bestsellers lists as the first two books in the trilogy did, and if so, how high. I live in Seattle, where coffee is worshipped like cats in ancient Egypt. We were the first city in the country to have a Starbucks on every corner, and Seattlites are known to coffee-hop from Starbucks to Starbucks all the way to work. (Okay, I made that up, but we do love our coffee.) So my treat of choice has been Starbucks coffee… which, admittedly, might not be the best way to calm one’s nerves.

I once found a recipe in a Better Homes & Garden cookbook for Secret Ingredient Barbecue Sauce. The secret ingredient was coffee, and it gave the sauce a nice smoky quality. I wondered whether coffee would work with a roast beef in the slow cooker. After all, I’ve heard of (but haven’t tried) roast beefs cooked with a can of Coke, and I thought coffee would have to be better than that.

I whipped out my iPhone and did a quick search, and I discovered several recipes for Slow Cooker Coffee Pot Roast, including this one from Kristen at Dine & Dish, one of my favorite cooking blogs: Slow Cooker Coffee and Garlic Roast Beef. I wanted to give my recipe a unique twist, so I looked around my pantry and came up with two additions I thought would work: coffee liqueur and onion soup mix.

The meat was delicious, infused with just a hint of sweetness from the liqueur, and fall-apart tender. I turned the juices into gravy. Made you want to lick your plate, it was so good.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Java Roast

1 4-5 pound beef roast
6 red potatoes
2 small onions
16 oz whole mushrooms
5 cloves garlic
1 ½ C prepared coffee (I used Hazelnut flavor)
1 envelope onion soup mix
¼ C Kahlua or other coffee flavored liqueur (optional… but it’s really good!)
Black pepper

Brown the beef in a heavy pan on the stove, turning to brown all sides. While it’s browning, cut the onion into thick slices and cover the bottom of the slow cooker with the onions. Place browned beef in the slow cooker. Pile the potatoes and mushrooms around the beef. Toss in the garlic cloves, peeled but left whole.

Mix together the coffee, Kahlua, and onion soup mix. Pour over the beef and vegetables. Pepper the beef and vegetables generously. Cook on low for 8 hours.

For the gravy: Transfer two cups of the liquid to a measuring cup. Allow to sit for a while so the fat rises to the top. Carefully skim 2 T of oil from the top, placing in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan. Heat over low heat. Add 2 T of flour to the drippings, stirring well. In small increments, add the liquid, whisking well each time. Once the liquid is all added, continue to heat until the gravy has thickened, stirring occasionally.

Slow Cooker Chicken Potato Pie

Read free excerpts of Susan Mallery books at www.susanmallery.com! (Plus, you’ll find more free recipes there, too.)
Here we go again! ONLY HIS was released yesterday, which gets my emotions all in a tangle. It’s very much like Christmas morning. After you’ve spent months on a handmade gift, you wonder whether your loved one will treasure it. Anticipation and excitement mingle with nervousness as you watch your loved one’s face, interpreting every nuance of expression. Does he love it?
The difference is, of course, that I can’t see readers’ expressions to interpret their reaction to ONLY HIS. I have to rely on the sales numbers for the first week to tell me the story. If readers love Fool’s Gold as much as I do, and if they’ve been eager to get their hands on Nevada Hendrix’s story, I’ll know it because they’ll rush out to buy the book this week. But until I know, all I can do is try not to fret too much. Comfort food helps.
I was in the mood for chicken pot pie, but I wasn’t in the mood to spend all day in the kitchen. So I came up with this recipe for Slow Cooker Chicken Potato Pie. It took less than ten minutes to put together, and then I turned on the slow cooker and forgot about it until dinnertime. And it was good!

Recipe: Slow Cooker Chicken Potato Pie

1 lb. uncooked chicken, cubed
1 family-sized can (26 oz) cream of chicken soup
½ C white wine or milk
1 can corn, drained
1 16-oz bag of frozen peas and carrots
1 small onion, chopped
4 oz mushrooms, chopped
1 t dried basil
1 t dried thyme
½ t sage
½ t pepper
3 red potatoes, sliced thin
Put all of the ingredients except the potatoes into the slow cooker. Mix well. Layer the potato slices on top of the chicken mixture. Cook on low heat for 6 hours.

Slow-Cooked Honey-Soy Pork and Potatoes

You can print this recipe and lots more at www.susanmallery.com/recipes.php! Last week, I went to Book Expo America in New York. Normally when I go on a trip, I let my husband fend for himself as far as meals. After all, he’s a grown man and perfectly capable of feeding himself. However, this was my second trip in less than a month. I had also traveled to Texas on book tour for ALREADY HOME just two weeks earlier.

Nothing says “I love you” to most men like meat and potatoes. My slow cooker was just the ticket. I could make a pork roast for us to share on Sunday, and he could eat leftovers on Monday and Tuesday. That’s two days’ worth of loving feeling.

Since the roast was in the slow cooker, I had time to pack, unpack, and repack on Sunday as I obsessed about what to wear in New York City, the most fashionable city in the U.S. (I was going to say “in the world,” but that seemed presumptuous. Paris or Milan would likely take top honors. I’ve never been to either; New York is intimidating enough.)

What I love about the slow cooker is that you get the credit for making a home-cooked meal with much less hassle. Throw everything in and then ignore it for eight hours. I did make some gravy right before serving, so that was about ten minutes of work. This meal would be even easier if you made packaged pork gravy. I served the roast with a ready-made salad from the grocery store. Big thumbs-up from the man.

Recipe: Slow-Cooked Honey-Soy Pork and Potatoes

¼ C soy sauce
2 T honey
1 t black pepper
1 pork roast, about 4 pounds
3-4 potatoes, cut into fourths
1 large onion, sliced thick
2 T flour
Salt and pepper

Throw the potatoes and onion slices on the bottom of the slow cooker. Place the pork roast, fat side up, on top of the vegetables. Mix together the soy sauce, honey, and 1 t black pepper. Pour over the roast. Cook on low for 8 hours.

To make the gravy, remove the pork and vegetables to a platter. Pour the liquid through a strainer into a measuring cup. Add enough water to make 2 cups of liquid. Let sit for 5-10 minutes. Preheat a heavy-bottomed, small saucepan on medium heat. Skim 2 T of oil from the top of the liquid and heat up in the pan until shiny but not smoking. Sprinkle 2 T of flour on the oil, stir. Add about a quarter-cup of the liquid to the flour mixture. Stir well, getting rid of lumps. Add another quarter-cup of liquid and stir well. Continue until all of the liquid has been added. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Simmer until the gravy is the desired thickness. Salt and pepper to taste.

Slow Cooker Cheesy Beef

Download a printable version of this recipe for free – and lots of other recipes! – at www.susanmallery.com/recipes.php

Everyone knows I’m on a diet. Slow Cooker Cheesy Beef is not diet food. Which is sad for me because it’s really, really delicious, and I could only have a taste. The thing is, my husband’s not on a diet, and I’m a good wife.

Also, not all of my readers are on a diet, and I created the recipes page on my website as a gift for the readers who have been such enthusiastic, wonderful fans. Every month, I get a report from my webmaster that shows me where readers go when they visit SusanMallery.com. The free excerpts of my books are the most popular pages, thank goodness, but the recipes have been a big hit, too. One of the recipes that’s been downloaded the most is for Slow Cooker Cheesy Potatoes (PDF). So I bought a four-pound chuck roast, brought it home, and thought, “How am I going to make something new and interesting with this in the slow cooker?”

I opened my cabinet, and angels smiled down upon me. There, right at eye level, sat a can of cheddar cheese soup and a box of onion soup mix. Nothing bad could possibly come of that combination! I mixed them together, added a couple spices, then threw them over the beef, onions, and mushrooms in the slow cooker.

The only thing that would’ve made this better would be if I had thrown in some potatoes, too. But I’m a good wife, not a great wife. I couldn’t stand to watch my husband eating potatoes while I denied myself.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Cheesy Beef

1 chuck roast, about 4 pounds
1 can cheddar cheese soup
1 packet onion soup mix
1 t dried thyme
1 t black pepper
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
1 large onion, sliced
3 T flour
1 C cheddar cheese, shredded
1 C sour cream

Mix together the soup, soup mix, thyme, and pepper. Layer the bottom of the slow cooker with onions and mushrooms, and put beef on top of them. Pour the soup mixture over the beef. Cook on low about 8 hours.

Remove the roast and vegetables from the slow cooker and set aside. Pour 3 cups of the liquid into a saucepan. Discard the rest of the liquid. Heat the liquid to boiling, then add the flour, a little at a time, stirring with a whisk to remove lumps. When it’s nice and thick, stir in the cheddar cheese until it’s melted. Then stir in the sour cream. Return the beef and vegetables to the slow cooker and pour the cheese mixture over it. Cook on low another half hour to an hour.

Don’t forget, ALREADY HOME will be released on March 29!

Quick & Easy Chicken Cheesy Soup

You'll find a printable version of this and many other free recipes online at www.susanmallery.com/recipes.php.

Last week on Facebook and Twitter, I asked my fans to tell me one thing they enjoy about winter. (I needed a pick-me-up. I don’t enjoy being cold, and Seattle at this time of year is cold and wet and gloomy.) Several people said “snow.”

That did nothing for me.

Someone else said curling up with a good book next to a roaring fire. Now we were getting somewhere. As you might imagine, I do love a good book. But still, I’d rather read that good book in the summer, when the days are long and the skies are blue.

Finally, one of my Twitter followers said that what she enjoys about winter is a bowl of thick soup. I perked up. Most of the year, I’m not into soup. I could take it or leave it. But on a cold winter day, a nice, thick soup warms me up from the inside out.

Unfortunately, by this time, it was already getting close to dinner. I wasn’t willing to put off the soup for another day. I needed to find something good about winter now, darn it! So I came up with a recipe for a hearty, delicious soup that took just half an hour from start to finish.

How is that possible? Because the soup is only sort of homemade. There are so many cans of food in it that I thought about naming it Can-Can Chicken Soup.

I settled on the name Quick & Easy Chicken Cheesy Soup because rhyming is fun.

Recipe: Quick and Easy Chicken Cheesy Soup

1 whole rotisserie chicken
1 can cheddar cheese soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can of corn or Mexicorn
1 can diced green chilies
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can chicken broth
1 T cumin
1 T chili powder
2 C milk

Tear the meat off the chicken bones, chop, and put into a heavy-bottomed soup pot with the accumulated juices from the chicken. Stir in all remaining ingredients. (Don’t drain any of the cans except for the black beans. Just open them up and add them to the pan, juices and all.) Heat over medium-low heat, stirring frequently.

This recipe can be made in the slow cooker. Just toss all the ingredients in a slow cooker and heat on low until warm all the way through.

Slow Cooker Mexican Lasagna

Remember, you can get a printable version of this and my other recipes at www.susanmallery.com/recipes.php!

Slow cooker recipes are terrific on cold winter days. As the food cooks, the scent drifts through the house, and you feel like you’re being productive even long after the work is done. When evening rolls around, it feels like magic to go into the kitchen to a fully cooked meal. Putting a meal in the slow cooker is like giving a gift to the “you” of later that day.

I was in the mood for pasta, but I wanted to put my own twist on it, so I decided to try to create a recipe for Slow Cooker Mexican Lasagna. My husband was skeptical. He lives by a very specific set of rules and, as he put it, “Lasagna is Italian!”

Yes, okay… but I still made it, and it was so good that he was speaking Spanish by the end of the meal.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Mexican Lasagna

2 T olive oil
1 lb ground turkey
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 package of taco seasoning mix
2 15-oz cans of tomato sauce
1 15-oz can of pinto beans, drained and rinsed
16 oz low fat cottage cheese
8 oz bag of shredded Mexican cheese blend, divided
1 C fresh spinach, chopped
9-10 whole grain lasagna noodles

Brown the turkey in oil, then add the onions through beans. Stir well and set aside. Combine the cottage cheese with half of the Mexican cheese and all of the spinach.

Layer in the slow cooker like this:

One-fourth of the meat mixture
One-third of the noodles, broken up to cover the meat
One-third of the cheese
One-fourth of the meat mixture
One-third of the noodles, broken up to cover the meat
One-third of the cheese
One-fourth of the meat mixture
One-third of the noodles, broken up to cover the meat
One-third of the cheese
The rest of the meat mixture.

Cook on low for about 5-6 hours, until the noodles are soft. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top, cover, and allow to melt.

If desired, serve with sour cream, chopped green onions, and chopped cilantro.

Slow Cooker Coq au Vin (Chicken with Wine)

On my Facebook page, several readers asked for more free slow cooker recipes. I love them, too. The prep work is a snap, the aroma drifts through the house all day, and the end result can be amazing. Slow cooker recipes are especially wonderful during these cold months.

I was in the mood for something simple. Something like you might find on a stove top in a French countryside kitchen, a few fresh ingredients that come together in the perfect combination of flavors.

I suspect that true aficionados of French cuisine probably don’t use Onion Soup Mix, but I’m a fan. I’m all about quick and easy recipes, and onion soup mix is a short cut to flavor. Ranks right up there with the best inventions of the 20th Century.

Coq au vin. Chicken with wine. As soon as the thought occurred, I knew I had a winner. And I was right. You know that aroma I was talking about? My house smelled incredible all day Sunday. So good! And the flavor was amazing.

I’m very proud to share my recipe for Slow Cooker Coq Au Vin with you. You can find a printable version of this recipe at www.susanmallery.com.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Coq Au Vin

3 lbs chicken bone-in chicken thighs, skinned
8 oz whole mushrooms
2 stalks of celery, cut into one-inch chunks
1 small onion, sliced
1 can of Campbell’s golden mushroom soup
½ can of dry red wine
1 envelope of onion soup mix
1 bay leaf

After washing the mushrooms, toss them into the slow cooker whole. Layer the onion slices and celery chunks, and then place the chicken thighs on top of the vegetables. Mix together the soup, wine, bay leaf, and onion soup mix, then pour over the chicken. Cook on low for 5-6 hours.

I ate this by itself, but I do think this would taste even better served over rice. It would be good over mashed potatoes, too, but in that case, I think you would want to thicken the sauce with cornstarch.

Easy Slow Cooker Beef Fajitas

You can find a printable version of this recipe on my website, www.susanmallery.com. Hover over Members Only Lounge, then click Recipes. Enjoy!

I wanted to treat my husband to a home-cooked meal on Sunday, but I didn’t want to spend all day in the kitchen. I pulled out my slow cooker so that we could enjoy the aroma of the beef wafting through the house all day, but I could also spend the day with Nikki curled up in my lap while I finished reading Seduce Me at Sunrise by Lisa Kleypas. (Wow, is she good!)

Readers have told me that they want more slow cooker recipes, so I decided to make up a recipe that I could share on my blog. Beef fajitas sounded like just the ticket, and I came up with the simplest possible recipe. It turned out amazing! Seriously amazing.

Instead of using flour tortillas, I served our fajita beef with romaine lettuce leaves. We’re trying to cut down on our carbs, and this was a delicious way to do it. A piece of lettuce, shredded beef that had been slow cooked all day, and shredded cheddar cheese … ah, life is good.

Recipe: Easy Slow Cooker Beef Fajitas

3-lb boneless beef roast
Salt & pepper
Vegetable oil
2 onions
1 C orange juice
1 packet of taco seasoning
1 4-oz can of diced chilies

Sprinkle the roast with salt and pepper. Preheat a cast iron skillet over medium/low heat, then add 1-2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and heat for 30 seconds. Brown beef roast for 2-3 minutes per side, adding more oil if needed.

Slice onions about ½ inch thick and do not separate the slices. Lay them flat in the bottom of the slow cooker. Put the browned beef roast on top of the onions. Mix together the orange juice, taco seasoning, and canned chilies, then pour over the beef. Cook on low for 8-10 hours.

Shred the beef with a fork. Wrap in flour tortillas or whole leaves of romaine lettuce for a low-carb option. Serve with shredded cheddar cheese and, if desired, sour cream, onions, tomatoes, avocados, chips, and salsa.

Slow-Cooked Beef with Garlic and Red Wine

It’s interesting how a recipe comes together. Last week, I posted my recipe for Flour-Dusted Roast Chicken to my Facebook page, and my fan Maggie said something about wanting a beef recipe. Near the same time, another fan, Susie, shared with me her son’s recipe for “Lomo con Ajillo” (Pork with Garlic), and yet another fan, Jennifer, mentioned that she relies on her slow cooker.

Put them all together, and what do you get? My recipe for Slow-Cooked Beef with Garlic and Red Wine. Dedicated to Maggie, Susie, and Jennifer, even though Jennifer’s kids won’t eat anything beefy. I served this with a simple salad tossed with vinegar and oil, and a hunk of fresh bread from the store.

By the way, the next time I make this, I’m going to spring for the pre-peeled garlic cloves from the store. I can’t imagine they’re that expensive, and I’m willing to pay a couple bucks to avoid having to peel 40 cloves of garlic in one shot.

Slow-Cooked Beef with Garlic and Red Wine

4-5 pound beef roast, cut into two-inch chunks

40 cloves of garlic, peeled

4-5 sprigs of fresh rosemary

1 t Kosher salt

½ t ground pepper

1 C dry red wine

Brown the meat on all sides, in batches. (Don’t overcrowd the pan you’re using to brown the meat.) Add the meat, garlic cloves, and rosemary sprigs to the slow cooker.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour in wine and the accumulated beef juice from browning. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Serve with a salad and bread for dipping.