This
slow cooker roast got its start as a variation of Beef
Bourguignon. Here we use a nice brandy to slowly braise the chuck
roast. Vegetables are cooked separately as a way of insuring better
taste and doneness! It is named to honor LGBT hero E. M. Forster.
Read about him for easy dinner conversation!
A
nice chuck roast, slow cooked on a bed of chopped onion in a braising
liquid of beef stock and brandy. A true comfort in these
uncomfortable times.
Ingredients:
2
tablespoons vegetable oil (or extra-virgin olive oil)
salt
+ pepper (to taste)
1
package brown gravy mix
2.5
lbs beef chuck roast
½
cup beef stock
1
large onion rough chopped
1
cup brandy
For
the Optional Gravy
1½
tablespoons all-purpose flour
2
Tbs beef stock (cold)
Directions:
First wipe out and spray the slow cooker, set to low.
Heat
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil or olive oil in a large skillet over
high heat.
Brown
the pot roast
on all sides in the hot oil, then remove to a plate.
While
that browns, do a rough chop on the onion. You want big pieces.
Scatter them in the cooker.
Place
the browned roast on top of the onions. If the pot roast does not
fit comfortably in the pot, cut it into two or three pieces.
Pour
the dry gravy mix on top of the roast and smear around with your
hand to make a coating.
Carefully
pour the ½ cup of beef broth and full cup of brandy around the
sides of the beef.
Cover
the pot and cook on the LOW setting for 8
hours,
or
on the HIGH setting for about 4 hours. The
roast is very tender.
Remove
the roast to a serving platter and tent with foil; keep it
warm until serving time.
During
the last hour of cooking you will have plenty of time to crank up
the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil. Stir
the broccoli with some olive oil and spread on the sheet. Let roast
for 30 - 40 minutes.
The
very tips and edges should have a touch of black. This is NOT
burned, this is caramelazation that makes the green vegetable so
delicious.
If
you wish, this is also the time to boil potatoes and mash them.
Remember
the meat should rest for at least 7 minutes! Do not forget
this step. The resting time is great for making the gravy.
Skim
off the fat or strain the liquids into a fat separator.
Pour
the strained liquids into a saucepan. Bring the liquids to a boil
over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue
cooking until reduced to about 1 to 1½ cups. Taste and adjust
the seasonings.
Combine
1½ Tbs flour with 2 Tbs of beef stock; mix until smooth and well
blended. Stir this into the reduced liquids and continue cooking
until thickened.
For
our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G55yNWCnXTI
What
a comforting meal for my Master to share.
socialslave
To
satisfy and restore.
To
nourish, support and maintain.
To
gratify, spoil, comfort and please,
to
nurture, assist, and sustain
…..I
cook!
Please
buy slave's cookbook:
The
Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon
============================
E
M Forster
Edward
Morgan Forster (1879
– 1970) was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and
librettist. Many of his novels examine class difference and
hypocrisy, including A
Room with a View,
Howards End,
and A Passage to
India. The last
brought him his greatest success. He was nominated for the Nobel
Prize in Literature in 16 different years.
Forster,
born in London, was the only child of "Lily" and Edward
Morgan Llewellyn Forster. He was registered as Henry Morgan Forster,
but accidentally baptized Edward Morgan Forster. His father died of
tuberculosis in 1880 before Morgan's second birthday. In 1883, he
and his mother moved to Rooks Nest, Hertfordshire until 1893. This
served as a model for Howards End in his novel of that name.
Forster
inherited £8,000 in trust (the equivalent of about 1.25 million
dollars today) from his great-aunt in 1887. The money was enough to
live on and enabled him to become a writer.
At
King's College, Cambridge, between 1897 and 1901, he became a member
of a discussion society known as the Apostles. They met in secret,
and discussed their work on philosophical and moral questions. Many
of its members went on to constitute what came to be known as the
Bloomsbury Group, of which Forster was a member in the 1910s and
1920s.
Forster
was gay. In 1906 he fell into his first and unrequited love with
Syed Ross Masood, a 17-year-old future Oxford student he tutored in
Latin.
After
leaving the university, he travelled in continental Europe with his
mother.
In
1914, he visited Egypt, Germany and India by which time he had
written all but one of his novels. As a conscientious objector in
the First World War, Forster served as a Chief Searcher (for missing
servicemen) for the British Red Cross in Alexandria, Egypt. Though
conscious of his repressed desires, it was at this time, while
stationed in Egypt, that he "lost his respectability" to a
wounded soldier in 1917.
In
the 1930s and 1940s Forster became a notable broadcaster on BBC
Radio and a public figure associated with the Union of Ethical
Societies. In addition to his broadcasting, he advocated individual
liberty and penal reform and opposed censorship by writing articles,
sitting on committees and signing letters.
Forster
was openly homosexual to his close friends, but not to the public,
and a lifelong bachelor.
He
developed a long-term relationship with Bob Buckingham, a married
policeman. Forster died of a stroke in 1970 at the age of 91, at the
Buckinghams' home in Coventry, Warwickshire. His ashes, mingled with
those of Buckingham, were later scattered in the rose garden of
Coventry's crematorium, near Warwick University.
Forster
had five novels published in his lifetime. Although Maurice
was published shortly after his death, it had been written nearly
sixty years earlier. He never finished a seventh novel, Arctic
Summer.
His
first novel, Where
Angels Fear to Tread was
published in 1905.
Next,
Forster published The
Longest Journey
in 1907.
Forster's
third novel,
A Room with a View
(1908), is his lightest and most optimistic.
Where
Angels Fear to Tread and
A
Room with a View
can be seen collectively as Forster's Italian novels. Both include
references to the famous Baedeker guidebooks and concern
narrow-minded middle-class English tourists abroad.
Howards
End
(1910) is an ambitious "condition-of-England" novel
concerned with different groups within the Edwardian middle classes
and the Basts, struggling lower-middle-class aspirants.
Forster
achieved his greatest success with A
Passage to India
(1924). A Passage to India was adapted as a play in 1960.
Maurice
(1971) was published posthumously. It is a homosexual love story
that also returns to matters familiar from Forster's first three
novels, such as the suburbs of London in the English home counties,
the experience of attending Cambridge, and the wild landscape of
Wiltshire.
The
novel was controversial, given that Forster's homosexuality had not
been previously known or widely acknowledged. Today's critics
continue to argue over the extent to which Forster's sexuality and
personal activities influenced his writing. Maurice was adapted as a
film in 1987.
Forster
was President of the Cambridge Humanists from 1959 until his death
and a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist
Association from 1963 until his death. His views as a humanist are at
the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal
connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society.
When Forster's cousin, Philip Whichelo, donated a portrait of Forster
to the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GLHA), Jim Herrick, the
founder, quoted Forster's words: "The humanist has four leading
characteristics – curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and
belief in the human race."
Forster's
two best-known works, A
Passage to India and
Howards End,
explore the irreconcilability of class differences. His posthumous
novel Maurice
explores the possibility of class reconciliation as one facet of a
homosexual relationship.
Sexuality
is another key theme in Forster's works. Some critics have argued
that a general shift from heterosexual to homosexual love can be
observed through the course of his writing career. The foreword to
Maurice
describes his struggle with his homosexuality, while he explored
similar issues in several volumes of short stories.
Forster's
explicitly homosexual writings, the novel Maurice
and the short story collection The
Life to Come, were
published shortly after his death.
