Pot Roast! Finally!

FINALLY! I made a pot roast! For the first year or two of our marriage we were constantly throwing out pot roast. Uncooked pot roast. I always wanted to make one and bought the ingredients with every intention of cooking it - but the meat would ALWAYS spoil before I could get to it. We finally decided to stop buying it because we were wasting so much money. Well... thanks to Pinterest.com and the Pioneer Woman I finally bought AND COOKED a pot roast!

I have to admit - it was a little more challenging than I planned but only because Sam decided that a nap was not in his plan for the day. SO... I got to add playing with/caring for/watching a 14 month old to the recipe :)

Like I mentioned above I found this recipe on Pinterest. It is from a blog by the Pioneer Woman who has her own show on Food Network (I think). To be honest- I had never watched her show or read her blog or really even heard much about her until this recipe. BUT - I like that she gave pretty detailed instructions (with pictures) which is a MUST for me! I am a decent cook - with a decent recipe - but I like VERY DETAILED instructions. I'm finding that a problem in my new crafting adventures... but that's for another day!

Below is a (very long) summary of my experience but for the full recipe visit:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/09/2008_the_year_of_the_pot_roast/

Here are the ingredients for the pot roast! I like to get everything out ahead of time so I'm not scrambling at the last minute to find what I need. (These pics are from my phone so please pardon the quality)

The first step was to heat up olive oil in a pan and I have to admit I overheated a bit because I started doing things out of order. I blame this on trying to multi-task too much and being a freak about onions... I decided to cut the carrots first (DUMB) because I didn't want them to taste like onions and I worried that if I cut the onions first their yucky onion juice would spread. ANYWAYS - the house filled with smoke but no detectors went off! YAY! (And scary...) I just opened the doors and turned on some fans and went back to business!

On a side note - Sam loved having the doors open. I never take him in the back yard and he saw this as his opportunity! This of course added to the challenge of keeping him safe and cooking at the same time but hey - I like a little adventure in my life!

Next I browned the onions, then the carrots and finally the meat...

Now this part got tricky. This is a 4 pound pot roast and apparently I do not have the right kind of tongs for this hefty meat. You are supposed to brown one side, turn over to brown the other, and then hold it on its side to brown those... I could NOT turn this meat very easily! I ended up having to take it off the burner and using both tongs AND a spatula work very hard to flip it over. It wasn't stuck to the pan or anything - just too big and heavy for my little rubber tipped tongs to handle. I had to skip browning the sides altogether because it just wasn't doable.

After this you deglaze the pan. You have the option of using red wine but I opted to just use beef broth. I don't mind cooking with wine but our HEB is not so fabulous and their selection leaves much to be desired. I only buy the small bottles so I'm not stuck with leftover wine that would spoil so that takes my options down even more (I know some of you might be choking on your wine right now to know that I wouldn't drink the leftover wine but I HATE wine. Gives me an INSTANT headache!) I didn't get a picture of this part as I was running back and forth removing BBQ utensils from Sam's hands, chasing a stray cat away, and overall just trying not to burn the house down or end the day with a one-eyed, cat scratched child.

Once the pan is deglazed you add everything back to it... meat first. The recipe called for adding enough liquid to halfway cover the meat - or 2-3 cups. Well... I got focused on the 2-3 cups so I WAY over did it! OH WELL! :) You will see in the picture that it looks more like a stew than a pot roast at this point but at least we know it won't be dry ;) I then added in the rosemary and my fake thyme. Remember the HEB isn't fab so I had to go with a substitute because they didn't have any fresh thyme. I won't tell you what I used... those real cooks/chefs out there might hang me! But I work with what I've got!

Here it is - ready to go into the oven. Now comes the hard part. She says "don't fiddle with it." WHAT? You know about every 20 minutes I want to go in there and peek! But I haven't. I'm following directions - even if it kills me!

Four hours turned out to be too much - thankfully I peeked early ;) and was able to turn the heat down all the way to just keep it warm until the potatoes were ready and Brian was home.

I moved the meat to a cutting board and it was sooooo juicy it fell apart on the way! It looks pretty fatty but I guess that's what makes it juicy. The fat grosses me out but it was so easy to remove as I cut it to serve. I also pulled the carrots out so they were easier to serve and put the onions aside for the trash - none of us eat them - we just like the flavor they add.

The Pioneer Woman suggested that you serve this with mashed potatoes instead of cooking the potatoes with the roast so I used my own recipe for those. It's nothing fancy - and DEFINITELY not healthy but its a combo of old family recipes and just my tweaking over the years.

I started with 4 large bulk baking potatoes. I scrub them really well and peel most of them. I don't worry about getting every little fleck of peel off - and my family doesn't seem to notice. Next I cut them into uniform pieces. It takes a little more time to be specific about this but it really helps them all cook evenly. I put them all in a pot of boiling (and salty) water and I just watch them. Every couple of minutes I take one out and give it a "fork test" to see how soft it is.


When the test potato is mashable I remove the potatoes with a slotted spoon and place them into my mixing bowl. I don't use a colander because I want to save the water for later. *Make sure you remove the potatoes BEFORE they start falling apart. Before I start mixing I add in several spoons of the leftover potato water (from the pot), a large amount of butter (about 2/3 of a stick), and some heavy whipping cream. I warned you they were not healthy! But MAN ARE THEY CREAMY! :) I don't usually have to add any salt because I use the heavily salted water at the beginning. I just mix them until there are a few lumps left and they are ready to serve!

We followed the Pioneer Woman's serving suggestion and it was GREAT! I put a bed of potatoes, made a "fence" with the roast, and laid a couple carrots on the side. Then I covered it all with the leftover liquid in the pot roast pan and it really pulled the whole dish together.

Sorry for the length of this post! I just couldn't leave anything out! You might make pot roast all the time - but for me this was a new challenge that I had been putting off for year. Hopefully it will encourage you to try something new. Don't be intimidated by the unknown! Hey - if it doesn't work out (like my paella last week) at least you will have a funny story and great memories with your family :)