Apple Cider Glazed Donut Holes tickle the taste buds with the flavors of fall. A touch of sweetness and the warm spices of apple cider make these donut holes the perfect morning treat to eat with a cup of steaming coffee.

Photography Credit: Cindy Rahe

Pot roast was a standard growing up, and still continues to be in my parents’ household. It requires slow cooking over low heat to ensure tender, flavorful meat.

What Makes the Best Pot Roast?

Pot roasts typically use the tougher cuts of beef—a chuck roast or shoulder roast—which have the most flavor. Slow cooking at low heat is what melts the tough connective tissue between the muscle fibers, leaving you with tender meat that pulls apart with your fork.

For pot roasts, and other slow cooked tough meats, fat is your friend! Not only does fat deliver flavor, it helps keep the meat from drying out in the long slow cooking. So look for cuts that are well marbled with fat.

Another tip? Let the roast sit (wrapped) for one to two hours outside of the refrigerator so that it comes closer to room temperature (between 65 and 70°F) before cooking. Otherwise, it will take a lot longer to cook at the low heat called for in this recipe.

How Much Liquid Do You Need?

This is my mother’s tried and true recipe for pot roast and she only adds a half cup of liquid to the pot! Why does this work?

Beef is about 60 to 70% water (the rest is protein and fat). So if you keep the heat very low and the pot tightly covered, the beef will release water as it cooks, and it will cook in its own juices.

The result? A deeper beef flavor for your pot roast. The key is keeping the temperature low and making sure the lid is tight fitting. Otherwise, too much vapor will escape from the pot and you’ll have a dry pot roast.

This recipe calls for 1/2 cup of red wine for the liquid. Use whatever red wine you like to drink. The wine will add a richer flavor to the roast, but if you don’t have wine on hand or would prefer to cook without it, you can substitute the wine with water or broth.

After cooking 3 1/2 hours. Note how much liquid has been released by the meat!

Can I Make This Pot Roast Other Ways?

My mother cooks her pot roast on the stovetop, but you can make it in the oven, a slow cooker, or a pressure cooker.

• If you’re cooking in the oven, brown the meat and onions, and bring to a simmer first on the stovetop. Then put in the oven, start the temp at 350°F for 15 minutes, then drop it to 250°F for the next hour, and then to 225°F after that.
• If you’re using a slow cooker, brown the meat and the onions, and transfer to the slow cooker. Follow the recipe as written, cooking on high for 4 to 5 hours or on low for 8 to 9 hours.
• If you’re using a pressure cooker, brown the meat and onions (if using an Instant Pot you can do that right in the cooker itself), then cook at high pressure for 65 minutes, then allow a natural release for 15 minutes. Check the instructions in our Instant Pot Pot Roast with Balsamic and Rosemary recipe.

Note! If you have a gas range, you may find difficulty getting the flame low enough. A tip I read in Cook’s Illustrated suggests tightly rolling up some aluminum foil, shaping it into a donut, and putting that on top of the burner to create a little more distance between the range and the pan. If you use a high-BTU range, even this may not be enough, in which case I recommend starting the roast on the stovetop and moving it to the oven to cook.

Can I Add Potatoes to this Pot Roast?

The issue with the potatoes is that they may fall apart with the long, slow cooking of the pot roast. If I wanted to add potatoes, I would use firmer new potatoes instead of Russets (they’ll hold their shape better). Cut them in half over 1 1/2 inches in diameter, and into quarters if larger.

I would heat the potatoes first (so they don’t lower the temperature inside the pot when you add them) in the microwave or in the oven on a roasting sheet, and then add them to the pot roast the last hour of cooking.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A GOOD POT ROAST?

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If you’ve never had this riff on a traditional grilled cheese, you’re in for a treat! Sweet and creamy with a snappy bite from the arugula, it’s a wonderfully light grilled cheese in which to indulge this fall.

WHY MOZZARELLA, ARUGULA, AND ROASTED RED PEPPERS?

Back when I was writing my cookbook, Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese, I had a lot of extra cheese in my house. Like, a lot of extra cheese – usually no less than 10 pounds, all scraps.

For my husband, who possesses the enviable metabolism of a high school student despite being well into his forties, this was a boon. His favorite food growing up and still to this day is a grilled cheese sandwich, and I had provided him with an inexhaustible supply of ingredients.

To him the variety is inconsequential. If it’s got bread and melted cheese, well, it’s his favorite. Brie and jam? Done. Manchego and ham? He’s on it. Taleggio and leftover bratwurst? Stinky but satisfying. He even bought a panini press so he could better, more efficiently feed his habit.

But one particular rendition stands out to us all these years later: mozzarella, roasted red peppers, and arugula. A little bit sweet, a little bit peppery, it hits all the right notes for fall.

ROASTED RED PEPPERS: BUY A JAR OR MAKE THEM!

Preserved, roasted red peppers can generally be purchased quite affordably at any grocery store. They’re packed in water or oil, and either type will do. Just be sure to pat off the excess liquid before making your grilled cheese. Trader Joe’s has a lovely version packed in water, while Mezzetta makes one packed in oil that can be found in many stores or purchased online.

If you’re an avid gardener with a glut of peppers coming in, or have a great source at the farmers’ market, you can also easily make your own!

Whatever peppers you use, make sure to salt and pepper them once they’re on the sandwich. All foods, including sandwiches, need seasoning. Flaky salt is best, but kosher salt also works. Avoid iodized salt; its metallic tang mars flavor.

WHAT KIND OF MOZZARELLA TO USE?

There are essentially two kinds of mozzarella: fresh or low-moisture. Fresh mozzarella is sold in balls packed in salty brine. Low-moisture mozzarella is sold in bricks or pre-shredded and can be found alongside the cheddar, Jack, and Colby cheeses in the dairy section of a store.

For this sandwich, you’ll want to use low-moisture (also known as part-skim) mozzarella. It has a saltier flavor and greater meltability.

If you only have fresh mozzarella, that will also work. It won’t melt and become as delightful stringy as a low-moisture mozzarella, but it will still taste absolutely fantastic!

Really want to take it over the top? If you can get fresh burrata, then, by all means, give that a go. Its creamy taste and texture make it well suited to oozing apart over high heat and soaking itself deep into the bread.

EASY SUBSTITUTIONS 

Grilled cheese sandwiches are all about improvisation. Don’t have red peppers? Use tomato! Consider this more a set of guidelines than anything else.

For the bread, I love the tang of sourdough and it grills so well. But if you don’t have that, or you’d like to use a panini press, then focaccia is also great.

The only ingredients I wouldn’t skimp on are the arugula, mustard, and seasoning. Arugula delivers a powerfully peppery bite, and the pungency of the Dijon mustard helps cut through the sugars naturally found in the peppers and cheese.

MORE GREAT GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES:

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Do you like wings? Do you like ramen? If you said yes twice, we should hang out. Barring that, make chicken wing ramen. It’ll be your happy place.

This easy Instant Pot recipe will be your go-to for using up leftover wings either from eating out or when you make them at home.

Chicken wing ramen is essentially a bonus meal from your initial wing-fest…but psst, I like chicken wing ramen even more than the wings themselves. The bulk of work is making wings in the first place (which is EASY) and picking the meat and skin from the bones. (And if you’re not into that, you’re not into wings in the first place, right?)

Throw everything into the Instant Pot and you have an easy weeknight meal from your party leftovers.

What Wings Can Be Used for Ramen?

This whole idea came from my friend, who regularly goes to the local brewery’s weekly wing night. He intentionally orders more hot wings than he knows he can eat so he can take the leftovers home to make Buffalo Wing ramen.

While Buffalo ramen is indeed amazing and remains my favorite manifestation of chicken wing ramen (there’s the gorgeous bright red slick of grease on top of the broth), we realized it’s possible to make ramen out of any leftover cooked chicken wings.

I tried it with Miso Chicken Wings, Old Bay Chicken Wings, and Teriyaki Chicken Wings. Sure, the flavor will vary depending on what you use, but it’s still essentially ramen.

WAIT! WHAT IS RAMEN, ANYWAY?

Ramen has come into its own in American noodle shops in the past 20 years, but most of us still think of it as super-cheap instant noodle soup with super-salty seasoning packets.

Real ramen is a Japanese noodle soup in a flavorful broth that’s garnished with sliced pork, soft-cooked eggs, and a very light scattering of vegetables. All the components are artfully arranged and in a wonderful harmony of colors, textures, and flavors. The best shops spend years perfecting their broth and their noodles.

You don’t need to, though. A satisfying bowl of steamy noodles and broth on a cold or rainy day is plenty close enough to perfect. Chicken wings have tons of cartilage and give you a silky, rich broth. Your Instant Pot makes quick work of extracting those characteristics because it’s ace for making chicken stock, stat.

HOW TO COOK THE EGGS

Cook your ramen eggs directly in the broth in the pot. A lot of recipes have you do this over a steamer rack before even cooking the broth, but why bother? Cooking eggs in the broth streamlines the process, and the eggs turn out just right.

The shells will be a little greasy, but you’re peeling them soon anyway. You want to undercook the egg so the whites are set but the yolk is a tad gooey. Two minutes at high pressure nails it every time!

If the idea of cooking the eggs in broth isn’t for you, you can steam them in the Instant Pot using this method, or on the stovetop with this method.

WHAT ARE THE BEST NOODLES?

The classic noodles for ramen are Chinese-style fresh wheat flour noodles. You might be able to find such noodles easily at a grocery store or Asian market—or, like me, have limited options.

I use shelf-stable “fresh” Chinese-style Hokkien stir-fry noodles from the Asian section of my big chain grocery store. If you’re in a pinch, use the noodles from two packets of instant ramen (but pitch the seasoning packets).

Classically, you cook the noodles in their own pot of boiling water, and not directly in the broth. This is a streamlined ramen, though, and we’re gonna do it right in the broth like the wing-lovin’ rogues we are.

WHAT DO YOU SERVE WITH THIS?

Good question! Instead of loading up the ramen with vegetables and detracting from the glorious broth, I suggest a modest scattering of scallions on top and a refreshing cucumber salad on the side. Dude, you just ate the wings of, like, a dozen chickens for dinner, don’t get all uppity about green veggies right now.

NEED MORE INSTANT POT RECIPES?

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You may love it or hate it, but you’ll never forget your first Negroni! This cocktail can be a bit polarizing, but for those who love it, it inspires an almost fanatical devotion.

Earthy, bitter, and sweet all at once, its simple proportions – one part each of gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth – make it one of the easiest cocktails to mix at home!

The History of the Negroni

Legend has it that the Negroni originated in 1919 at an Italian café when Count Negroni asked for an Americano (Campari, vermouth, and club soda) with gin in place of the club soda. The mix was serendipitous, and a famous cocktail was born.

Since then the Negroni has become incredibly popular. It has such an enthusiastic following in the cocktail world that there is a whole event devoted to it! During Negroni Week you can sip Negronis at local bars and a portion of the proceeds will go to charity.

What Should I Know About Campari?

There is only one brand of Campari, and if you’re going to make this drink you definitely need some.

Campari is a bitter, herbal Italian liqueur. It also has notes of orange and a bit of spicy sweetness. If you’ve ever had Aperol – the star of the Aperol spritz – then you get the idea: They both belong to the family of bitter Italian liqueurs called Amaros, but the bitterness of Campari is a bit more pronounced. Campari gives the Negroni its characteristic bitter edge, and also its bright red color. You can find Campari in the liqueurs section at most larger liquor stores.

What Gin and Vermouth Should I Use?

While you can certainly use a premium gin in a Negroni, it’s not necessary to spend a lot of money. A mid-range gin (I like Boodles or Broker’s) will do fine.

However, it is worth shelling out for a nicer sweet vermouth. Carpano Antica is really the dream, but other high-end vermouths will do as well.

What Glass Should I Use?

I’ve always preferred this drink served up – that is, without ice – in a cocktail glass. But it’s far more common (at bars and on the internet) to see it served in an old fashioned glass, over ice. Try both and see what you like!

What Are the Correct Proportions?

The incredibly simple proportions of the Negroni (just 1: 1: 1) are surely a part of its enduring appeal, but you can make it other ways. I’ve had Negronis made with two parts gin to one part vermouth and Campari, which results in a delicate (albeit gin-heavy) drink. I’ve also seen recipes that favor Campari over the sweet vermouth for a more bitter, bracing cocktail.

As with all cocktails, I encourage you to experiment! Start with the classic recipe, then let your imagination and your inclinations take you from there.

More Gin Cocktails to Enjoy!

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