I just finished basting the big chunk of beef roasting in my oven. With plenty of onions packed, and potatos waiting to be put in the oven when the rest of my family gets back from church.
Is there nothing on earth as tasty as a good, homemade pot roast? Tender, juicy, with lots of thick gravy, and onions? Especially when you cook potatos and carrots in the same pot.
Steak grilled outside. Potatoes and onions wrapped in foil and baked on the grill. Maybe I’ll try carrots and parsnips, too…
MMM…pot roast. I love the stuff, especially with tons of garlic. I make mine in the slow cooker after searing it on the stove. Before I do any of that, I make small incisions all over the roast and stuff garlic cloves into the pockets. I genreally use a whole bulb of garlic for one roast. Yum.
Unfortunately it is ninety degrees in my house and entirely too hot to think about cooking.
How serendiptous! I happen to be making an awesome pot roast for dinner tonight! Seared in leftover bacon grease, seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, celery seed and bay leaves. Cooked in red wine in the slow cooker ALL DAY LONG. With taters, carrots, and sweet Texas 1015 onions. Served with crusty french bread.
All hail the mighty pot roast!
Pot roast is okay, but for the yummiest braised meat EVAH try a New Orleans variation called Creole Daube.
Following recipe adapted and cheerfully stolen from Jane & Michael Stern’s A Taste of America, Andrews and McMeel, 1988.
6 garlic cloves
1/2 cup water
Large onion, chopped
35 oz can tomatoes (imported Italian, by choice)
1 tsp black pepper
1 tblsp salt
2-3 lbs bones chuck roast (or a meaty shank bone, or a flank steak)
spaghetti
Pulverize garlic in Cuisinart with water. Add onions, tomatoes, pepper, and salt, and blend. Pour into a pot large enough to hold the meat.
Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a low simmer. Add the roast. Cover. Simmer 4 hours, stirring every once in a while to keep meat from scorching on the bottom.
Throw roast away. Serve gravy over cooked spaghetti with grated cheese.
:d
This one goes in my recipe collection!
Except for the part about throwing the roast away :eek: 
Well, the Sterns say to slice the roast and serve it alongside. Or you can shred it and stir it into the sauce.
But the cooked beef pales beside this gravy. All its meaty goodness dissolves right into the sauce.
MMmmm. pot roast! Potatoes, carrots, celery, onions…in my family, my son eats the celery, I eat the onions, my daughter eats the carrots and we share the potatoes and meat, so nothing goes to waste! Maybe after payday…
Hah, hah, hah…thanks to a recent informercial purchase, I have the Ronco Solid Flavor Injector! No incisions and stuffing necessary. Jam that bad boy in there and hit the plunger like you’re impregnating a moose! Whole cloves of garlic! Pine nuts! Black olives! Sun-dried tomatoes! Herbs! Spices! Tennis shoes! If it’s not the BEST thing you’ve ever bought for your kitchen, PLEASE return it to us and DO get your money back! And if you promise to tell a friend about it (not that we could ever legally verify that), we’ll GIVE you SIXTEEN MORE OF THEM as our FREE GIFT! Now, what would you pay for all this??? WE DON’T CARE!!!
…sorry, I got carried away…
Seriously.
I’ve got a couple of elk roasts in my freezer (courtesy of hunter-brother-in-law) that I’m planning on thawing and crockpotting in the near future.
Starchy veggies, savory herbs, possibly some alcohol (for tenderization purposes, of course)…
Yep, nothing gooder than that. Pot roast is the easiest thing to make in a crockpot, bar none. It is (and I unfortunately speak from experience) one of the most culinarily efficient utilization of resources for a bachelor.
You may all now pity me, if you like…but I’ve got ELK ROAST in my freezer, so NYEAH!
That almost made me fall off my chair. Now I seriously have to buy one of those injectors so I can tell people that’s what I did last night.
This is the thing they use to put the garlic in the chicken in the duck in the goose in the sheep in the cow in the camel in the sperm whale, bury it in the sand and cook it over night?
No, no, you’re thinking of the…erm…well, I don’t know WHAT you’re thinking of. It sounds dirty, though.
The famous turducken might be what you are jovially referring to (or the South African variant: the osturducken).
The Ronco Solid Flavor Injector (yes, it sounds like a bad porn movie) is a large-bore syringe-type thing that allows you to load it with whole garlic cloves, pine nuts, herbs, all the stuff that I mentioned earlier, and inject them into the center of a piece of meat. That also, come to think of it, sounds like a bad porn movie.
I’m starting to get uncomfortably aroused for some reason.
I’ve never had pot roast. I was raised vegetarian. Since I had my first steak at age 27 (nine years ago), I’ve gradually learned more about cooking various meats. Pot roast is not one of those things I’ve attempted, especially since I don’t know what I’m missing. But I do love beef, and this thread intrigues me.
So, here’s the deal. I am a single gal living in a weensy NYC apartment, with a scant square foot of kitchen work space. I have a small oven, but no crock pot or microwave. Nor do I own a roasting pan. Is there any practical way I could attempt a pot roast on my own? Does the meat come in smaller quantities (I understand it may be a few meals’ worth)? What would you suggest for a “trial run” roast?
Every year - especially in the fall-winter when warm comfort food sounds most appealing - I consider buying a small crock-pot, but I haven’t quite convinced myself that I’ll use it enough. Maybe you can convince me otherwise.
I find that, even as a single woman who rarely feeds others with stuff I’ve cooked myself, a crock-pot (or slow cooker) is one of the essential appliances in my apartment. I could live without the food processor, and definitely without the foreman grill (though I use it fairly regularly), but my crock pot and coffee maker will be the last two appliances I would ever give up. And it’d be a tough call between the two. I make oatmeal in it - cook the steel-cut oats overnight so they’re ready when I get up in the morning. I use it for soups, chili, stews, pot roasts…just about anything. The only thing I wasn’t a big fan of was a whole chicken, and that only because it was really tough to get out. It tasted good though.
If you get one, make sure you get one where the stone part comes out - it makes clean up a thousand times easier, even if it’s a bigger pot than you think you’d really use (you can always put less in to a big one, but it’s definitely hard to put more in a small one). And I do occasionally use the liners that you can buy, when I’m making something that will stick.
The roasts you use for pot roasts do come in smaller sizes - I can’t remember what type I usually get, though. Basically, I toss some potatoes, carrots, onions in the bottom of the crock pot, put the meat on top, salt, pepper, then some liquid. Usually beef broth, but I think I may have to try some red wine…and add some garlic. Pour that over, turn it on low, and 7-8 hours later (or more, if I work late), there’s dinner.
Get the crock-pot. You’ll never regret it. Roasts, chili, stew, soup…it’s a true multi-tasker. You can find smaller roasts in the meat department. Get the cheapest cut you can find, because all that slow cooking will dissolve all the fats and make it sooo tender. Beer or wine for the cooking liquid. Potatoes, celery, onions, carrots, parsnips, turnips, and mushrooms all work. A handy trick if you prepare ahead is to cook the roast all day, then let it set all night in the pot with the power off. In the morning, skim all the fat off the top, and it will be ready to heat and eat that day. If you use mushrooms, add them an hour before serving so they don’t mush out of existance.
Beans are great in a crockpot, too! A pound of pintos, a ham bone, and a quartered onion. Salt,pepper, a dash of garlic powder and lots of water (those beans will swell!) and cook all day long on low. Make some cornbread when you get home - you’re good to go! And the beans will freeze well.
You guys are making me hungry. Thanks for the advice; you’ve presented an excellent case for the crock pot.
I make legendary pot roast. Sounds weird, but stay with me here, you won’t be sorry.
Coat the meat with flour, salt and pepper and brown the crap out it – then remove it from the pan.
Loosen the browned on stuff with one can of beef broth.
Add one jar of horseradish, (yes, a whole jar – 8 oz.) 3/4 can of whole cranberry sauce, 1 stick of cinnamon, 6 cloves, salt and pepper. Add pearl onions, small peeled potatoes and carrots if you want to, then dump the meat back in and simmer until the sauce is reduced to about a third the amount (4 hours or so).
Best. Stuff. Ever.
koeeoaddi - that sounds like a very interesting recipe! Where did you find it? Does the horseradish settle down some or infuse the meat with spicy goodness? Does it make enough liquid/gravy to serve with rice?