Rainy Day Pot Roast

 

 

 

When it's a rainy, dreary day, there's nothing like a yummy pot roast baking slow and low in your oven all afternoon. How luxurious to sit by the fire and read letting the house fill with those enticing aromas. 

 

There is no pot roast recipe better than this one. It's a variation on Laurie Colwin's recipe for Pot Roast from her wonderful book Home Cooking.

Yield: 8-10 servings

Ingredients:

• 5 lb. beef chuck roast
• 1 Tbsp. smoked paprika
• 3 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 red bell peppers, sliced
• 1 onion, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 carrot, sliced
• 1 cup red wine OR beef stock
• 15 oz. can tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. pepper
• 1 tsp. dried marjoram leaves
• Carrots. peeled and cut in 1/3s and small white and red potatoes

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Heat olive oil in heavy pan over medium high heat. Sprinkle roast with paprika and brown, about 15 minutes total. Place in Dutch oven or any large oven proof casserole dish with a lid and add bell peppers, onions, carrot, and garlic. In the same skillet used to brown roast, add wine or beef stock, tomato sauce, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, and salt, scraping to loosen any brown bits; add pepper and marjoram. Pour over the meat and vegetables and cover. Bake in a 300 degree oven for 4-5 hours. I planned on four hours. I added the carrots when the roast still had about an hour and 1/2 to bake, and I added the potatoes with one hour to bake.

When the pot roast is tender, remove and cover it with foil to keep warm. Remove the large pieces of carrot and potatoes and cover to keep warm. I have an immersion blender and I just stuck that in the pan juices and well cooked peppers, onions and carrot and whirled it all up in to a great gravy. If you don't have one of those handy devices, you can use a food processor. You might want to add some more salt to the gravy--try just a little, taste and then add slowly. The gravy is good, so you don't want to ruin it with too much salt. Slice the pot roast and spoon the gravy over it.

This gives us plenty of leftovers! Cook once, eat twice :-)