Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Pot Roast

I love love love pot roast in the slow cooker.

My basic recipe goes a little like this, but it changes all the time!

3-4 lb beef (like my dad, i prefer the 7 bone chuck. bones are great)
1 onion (or more or less, slice decently thinly)
2-3 carrots (sliced thinly)
2-3 potatoes (diced on the bigger side)
oil
flour
salt&pepper
optional: wine, spices

So! Heat your oil in a skillet big enough to hold your meat. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Coat with flour, and brown for a few minutes on each side. This is the only chance for it to brown. Put your onions and veggies in the crockpot. Put your browned meat on top. Add about 1/2 cup of liquid (today it was half wine and half water - i used 2$chuck, so we'll see how it works out!). Put it on low and leave it for at least 6 hours. Preferably more.

When the meat's just about done (tender and falling apart), remove it to a cutting board and tent with foil. Reserve the veggies, and pour the remaining liquid into a sauce pan. Reduce for 10-15 minutes, thicken if need be for a great gravy. Slice the meat, and serve!

This can be the ultimate one pot meal. I mean, veggies and potatoes and meat... What else do you need? For leftovers (there ought to be leftovers), cube remaining meat and store with the veggies and gravy. It will heat up into a divine stew. If you dont have leftover veggies, just add more while you're heating and it'll make you simmer everything for a while. Which can only help the potroast.

Alternatively, you can do what I did today. About 10 hours in (i started with a frozen roast. just up the cooking time), I took out most of the liquid and all of the veggies (i added them late!). I put this to boil, and returned the meat to the crockpot. Should be awesome. I'm also serving it over mashed potatoes, simply because my groceries hadn't come in yet, and I didnt have potatoes til later.

So! Easy peasy. This roast is costing me about 4$ total, because meat was on sale (and the original piece was huge! I hacked it in half and froze one. this is that one). Carrots, potatoes, and onion are all cheap, so it works splendidly.

No nutrition facts, because it varies so much by how much you eat.. just like everything else. But for this, its so easy to eat just a lil more or a lil less.

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