The Burns’ Family Blog & The Confection Chronicles

NOTE:  I wrote this passage weeks ago and for some reason never published it!!  So, it is a little late!

Of course I love to bake and make candy, but I really love to cook.  With our busy schedule and my kitchen constantly being filled with cake and candy, I don’t get to cook big meals as much as I would like.  But today was different.  There was no wedding cake today, all of the other cakes and special orders were picked up yesterday, and Phillip was with us this weekend (he loves a big meal and is my best taste-tester!)…so, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try a new recipe. 

For a week or two I have had my eye on a pot roast recipe in the Feb/March issue of Taste of Home.  Oh, pot roast – I have spent a very long time trying pot roast recipes.  I have my old standard that my mom has made for as many years as I can remember and then I have one with Catalina dressing that my mother-in-law uses.  But I wanted my own special pot roast – something with a great gravy.  I am obsessive over gravy.  I rarely eat it in a restaurant — only those where I know the gravy is amazIng (FYI – Paula Deen’s restaurant The Lady & Sons has the greatest gravy in the world!!!).  So, my first requirement for a new pot roast recipe is that the gravy has to be very appealing to me, and this one looked great. 

So, I put the roast on around noon and I followed the recipe exactly.  By 6 when it was time for dinner, I found the most delicious treat in my crock pot.  It was spectacular!!!!!  All three of us loved it and really made pigs of ourselves.  The link for the recipe is http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Pot-Roast-with-Gravy  and we all highly recommend it!! 

Everyone assumes that when you own a confection company you constantly feed your family cake and candy and it just isn’t so!  We rarely have dessert, and when we do, it is a special treat and there is usually a reason to have it (rarely “just because”).  So, in honor of the first unofficial day of strawberry season (my daddy brought us some beautiful and delicious berries this morning), as soon as dinner was over, I made sour cream pound cake with strawberries (some dipped in chocolate) and whipped cream.  It was the perfect end to such a great meal!