What makes a French Dip French?

The best thing about cooking dinner every night is that I can fix my food cravings almost immediately!  Last night, I was craving mashed potatoes...YUM.  I can ALWAYS eat potatoes but last night, they sounded delicious.  I thought for a while about what would go well with mashed potatoes and I came up with a French dip.  I've never made French dips before.  The closest I've made is leftover beef sandwiches with roast/prime rib.

The roast took 8 hours in the crock pot so I started on that early.  The ingredients I decided to use were as follows:

3 lb chuck roast

beef broth

garlic

onion

salt

pepper

soy sauce

worcestershire sauce

beer (lefthand nitro milk stout for me...more b/c I knew we'd drink the rest of the 6 pack later)

bay leaf

thyme

rosemary

Crockpots are great b/c they make cooking SO easy.  It's nearly impossible to screw up in a crockpot.  To make the roast, I sliced the onions and layered them on the bottom of the pot.  Then, instead of chopping the garlic, I just smashed it and threw it in.  The roast was set on top of the onions and the rest of the ingredients went in.  I filled the pot until the roast was almost completely covered, put the lid on, and then let it cook for 8 hours.  I'd check it every now and then just for flavor.  Turns out, I didn't have to change a thing! 

I didn't take pictures of making mashed potatoes b/c they are pretty easy and I'm sure most people have made them.  I just brought the water to a boil and threw the potatoes in.  I chose to use red potatoes since they're less starchy.  I cut them up and soaked them in water to release some of the starches before putting them in the pot.  Then, I just let them cook until tender.  To them, I only added salt, pepper, butter, and half and half.  I didn't want to go overboard with them since I knew the au jus from the roast would have enough flavor.  

For the bread, I bought a loaf of French bread from Whole Foods.  When the roast was ready, I cut up some bread and put it in the oven at 350 to toast. 

I shredded some beef and placed it on some aluminum foil on a baking sheet.  Then topped the beef with a slice of provolone cheese and threw it in the oven with the bread in order for the cheese to melt. 

   

 Once everything was out of the oven, I put some chipotle mayo on the bread (we were a little in a rush so I didn't take the time to make a horseradish sauce which I would have preferred).  I then topped the bread with the beef/cheese combo and scooped out some onions and topped the sandwich with those.  On the side, I served ramekins of au jus.

These were awesome!! I was so happy with how the beef turned out.  I was so worried it wouldn't shred or fall apart and then we would be stuck with hard, not delicious beef.  The sauce was great with the potatoes and the potatoes were so good, even by themselves.  The crunch of the bread, with a mixture of softness was the perfect texture.  They weren't too salty or too bland.  Even though I was so full, I kept eating and finished the whole thing.  I even ate some for breakfast this morning.  This dish is so incredibly easy.  You can throw it in the crockpot in the morning and come home to a perfectly made meal!