Rutter Kitchen- Menu #32

Since all three recipes in this menu required ahead of meal time preparation, we decided to each take a recipe, fix it and then meet at our house to have dinner.  That worked really well and we actually got to eat dinner before too late that night:)  I fixed the Slow Cooker Sunday Dinner Pot Roast.  Since I prefer my beef chuck roast slow roasted in the oven, that's what I did instead of using the slow cooker.  I used to cook my roast in the slow cooker, until I tried it in the oven, so I decided to just do it how we liked it.  I browned the veggies and then the meat.  I used 5#s of meat, so I used two enamel Dutch ovens to cook the meat and veggies in.  I first put in the meat, added beef broth, then the seasonings and last the veggies. To one of the pots I did add the can of diced tomatoes.  I cooked it for around 5 hours and that was just right.  I used the liquid left in the pots to make the gravy and just thickened  it with mixed flour and water.  I also added some beef broth.  That's how I always make my roast gravy and we like it just fine.     

Ashley fixed the Mandarin Orange Pretzel Salad.  It did take a little time to fix it, but I think she enjoyed making it.  She followed the recipe. She did use a rolling pin to crush the pretzels since she doesn't have a food processor.  We probably could have gotten by with just half a recipe since we had a lot of leftovers.  Dana fixed the White chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake and she said that it did take some time to prepare it, but it was fun to do.  Like Jacki mentioned in her review, it did make a lot of the filling, so be prepared! We liked all the recipes and thought that the cheesecake would be really nice for a Christmas dessert.  The Jell-O salad was real good and I thought that dish would be real good for a potluck dinner.  All in all this was a successful menu :)