(Still here. Jeff’s mom is in town, and school has started. I might make with some new recipes next week, which will give me something to talk about.)

Everyone cheats occasionally with food shortcuts. We cheat a lot less than we used to, but when we’re in the mood to do so, pot roast is one of our favorite ways to do it.

1. Buy a nice chunk of roast. It can be a cheap cut - after eight hours in the crockpot, almost anything will be tender - or a more expensive one, or whatever. In our case, Rocking F had roast on sale for $3 a pound, and Marguerite recommended a sirloin tip roast. The night before you want the roast, pull it out of the freezer and into the fridge to thaw.
2. Put the roast into your crock pot eight hours before you want to eat. Pour into a couple of packs of onion soup mix, and make sure the meat is cooked. Add in a couple of cans of cream of [whatever your preference is, we used chicken.] Top with as many diced potatoes as your crockpot will hold (no matter how many you make, they will get eaten.)
3. Turn to low. Ignore for the rest of the day.

8 hours later, you will have a lovely, tender, falling apart roast, just the thing when you’ve had your first evening class of the semester and you’re danged hungry when you get home. As a bonus, since you’ve used the crockpot, your kitchen won’t be blazingly hot, so it won’t seem odd that you’re eating pot roast in the middle of a record heat wave.