Pot Roast

Once again, I got my inspiration for tonight's dinner from Pioneer Woman. Her latest blog was titled 2008: The Year of the Pot Roast. After this came out of the oven, I kinda hafta agree with her.

Pot Roast

4 - 5 pounds of boneless chuck roast (mine was 4 1/2)

5 small onions

6 carrots

2 - 10 oz. packages of mushrooms (I used both baby bellas and white buttons)

2 cups beef broth

Sprig of fresh Rosemary

In a large heavy pot add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Make sure the pan is smoking hot when you add the oil. Peel and cut your onions, trying to leave the root end as much in tact as possible. Take the onions and lay them cut side down and let them get browned. Wash the carrots (I did not peel mine, just gave them a good scrub) and cut them in good size chunks on an angle so the carrots have more surface area to brown in the pan. Remove the onions, add more oil if you have to and let the carrots brown up a bit too. Set these aside as well.

Now take your chuck roast and season it well with salt and pepper and repeat as above. Let it get a good sear on both side. Don't move it around in the pan, let it get nice and brown. I tipped the sides and browned them too.

Add carrots and onions back in the pot with the roast. Cut the larger mushrooms in half, the smaller ones I just threw in whole. Add those as well. Throw in a good size sprig of Rosemary. Don't skip this step, it makes a world of difference. Pour in the beef broth until it comes about half way up the roast, remember the mushrooms will add more liquid as they cook too.

Pop it into a 275 degree oven. Mine cooked for 4 hours and the meat was just falling apart. We cut it with a fork that's how tender it was. John must have told me about 6 times "God hunny that was so good", and it was.