Oh boy, I just cooked up a monster of a meal and now I can’t stop thinking about it.  Its delicious, healthy, and a good value – but unfortunately its going to take a few hours to fully cook.

In the meantime, let me tell you what goes into this feast.

• 2 pounds eye of round roast ($6.70)
• 1 medium onion ($.50)
• 1 medium tomato ($.75)
• 6 potatoes*** ($1.50)
• 3 stalks celery ($.50)
• 1 can green peas ($.50)
• 1 pound carrots ($1.60)
• 1 pinch thyme
• Black pepper
• 3 shakes oregeno
• 1/2 tsp. olive oil

Its about $12 and its pounds and pounds of fresh food and naturally savory flavors.  The best news is the prep takes almost no time if you’re using a crockpot.

Place the beef in the bottom of the pan, and cover it with chopped onions.  They don’t need to be chopped too finely, the moist heat will turn the whole thing into something close to a soup.  Six potatos go next to the beef, and this forms your bottom layer since they require the most cooking.  (The bottom layer is closest to the heatsource and touching the water, so it should cook a tiny bit quicker.)

Next, I got about a pound of baby carrots in a small bag.  This was under $2 at Walmart and its ready to eat, so just dump ’em on top of the beef & potato layer.

Now a little more chopping:  the celery and the tomato.  I end up cutting them a little long and a thin:  I want the flavors to get mixed up real good.

Then I just pop open a can of peas…  Normally I wouldn’t use canned food, but this recipe does call for water and some salt.  The celery will provide a tiny bit of salt, but the can of peas just happened to be a convenient fit.  If you’ve got dried peas, you might want to soak them before cooking even though the heat inside the crockpot is humid.

Finally, a pinch of thyme, a dozen cranks on the pepper grinder, and a few shakes of oregeno make the perfect seasoning.  Cover up the crock pot and find some way to distract yourself from how long it will take to cook.  The good news is, the only step after being patient is enjoying dinner.

***This recipe fills up a pretty big crockpot, and its going to cook slower than usual due to the amount of food stuffed inside.  Its also going to make enough meals for a family + leftovers, or a week’s worth of bachelor grub.