Love, Comfort(foods) and Coffee

Today is Valentines Day. I'm sure everyone already knew that! My husband came home from work and brought a little stuffed animal for each of our kids (aww!) and a fabulous card for me with a surprise to come later on today! I can't wait to see what it is! I am very blessed to be married to my husband, I love him so much! I remember those years that I was single and it seemed like everyone around me was getting married, or engaged around V-day and I hated it and even called it "national single awareness day" but I totally missed out on celebrating the fact that I was single when I was single for V-day. Each chapter of life has it's blessings and while I wouldn't go back to being single it was a special time in life, just as special as marriage and kids are now! The next chapter in life is when our kids leave home and we become empty nesters and grandparents! 

Taking the lessons I learned from going from being single to being married I am going to savor every minute of every day. Each day is a gift from God and each breath a blessing no matter what situation you need to look for the silver lining. Someone always has it worse than you so that means you have something to be thankful for! I need to continue to remember that on my hard days!

Now for the Comfort of today. When some people think of pot roast they think of country people, simplicity and maybe even rednecks. Surprisingly enough pot roast is a special meal for us. The tastes can be so complex and beautiful that the pot roast doesn't get enough attention for. Anything made in love is going to taste better than something fancy prepared by someone who doesn't care. I'm totally not joking. Have you ever eaten something by someone who hates to cook? My point exactly. 

I think of pot roast as the ultimate comfort food but also something even more special. I like to make a fancier version of pot roast. In the crock pot. 

Yes. You read it correctly. Fancy in the crockpot. It's not just in how you cook it, it's also in the presentation. Presentation is just as important as cooking and preparing it. 

I like to take a kosher cut roast and let it slowly cook kind of like roast beef all day on low then you carefully remove it from the crockpot and scoop out the vegetables pour a little juice around it on a nice platter and then make the gravy from some of the rest of the liquids in the crockpot. Something simple just got made up. If you arrange the vegetables nicely on the platter it takes the lowly pot roast to a whole new level. Serve up some biscuits or dinner rolls (depending on the mood/theme you are trying to get at the table) and voila! Comfort food made fancy! Tonight for time's sake I'm just going to make biscuits GFree of course and I'm going to try to make some GFree gravy for the first time too! The house smells fabulous of my crockpot pot roast.

To start of this morning I splurged and bought some flavored coffee. Usually I just stick with my organic free trade plain coffee but today I did some free trade flavored coffee and it was a nice treat topped with some real whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon! Love coffee!!

So today I am enjoying simple yet complex pot roast (thanks to my "magic" seasonings! and preparation) and celebrating the simple things in life! 

Much like that quote that says" The best things in life aren't things". So, so true.

So it doesn't matter if you are single, married or whatever celebrate each day like it's special. Because each day is special. You don't need to have a calendar or a "hallmark holiday" to make the day special!

~Enjoying Comforting Simplicity~

KT