Dark Days Challenge No. 4

It's a pot roast that was cooked in my crock pot. Usually it takes about eight hours. But we had a power failure on Sunday afternoon so the pot roast got its final cooking on Monday afternoon. Actually that turned out to be better. Lia, a puppy raiser for Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) who lives in Reno, was in the area to have her CCI breeding dog Darlan x-rayed. We invited Lia, Darlan and Lia's friend Frank over for dinner.

Darlan and Harleen had dog food. Darlan delivered 12 puppies on Dec. 29th, right on schedule. Each puppy weighed at least one pound. Darlan is a small Labrador retriever so this was quite a load for her to carry. Everyone is doing fine. In eight weeks the puppies will visit us on their way to being turned in to CCI in Santa Rosa, CA.

Back to the pot roast. The meat came from a local ranch. Potatoes and carrots from the farmers market in Auburn. The onions used were ones I dried last summer. Never dry onions in your house. The whole house smelled. I finally put my dehydrator out on the back deck. Much better. The sauce was local white wine mixed with local honey. The honey gave everything a nice glow.

I topped everything off with local shitake and oyster mushrooms that I sauteed in butter, which was not local. So that's my final dark days challenge meal of 2010. On to 2011. It's already in the crock pot.