Sunday Pot Roast

Who doesn't like a simple pot roast ? I ask you.

Sunday morning is pretty busy around the grey cottage. I'm usually up early preparing snacks for the church folks, showering and dressing and then dashing to church and staying for service, fellowship, and clean-up afterwards. That means that Sunday dinner for guests has to be an easy affair. This pot roast can be thrown together in ten minutes and left to cook all day. The onions and mushrooms get added later. It's moist, tender, and truly fast and simple to prepare!

This past Sunday, a four and a half pound boneless chuck roast got a hot sear in a wee bit of canola oil. Then, it was popped in a slow cooker with two cans of low-sodium cream of mushroom soup, an envelope of onion soup/dip mix, a couple squirts of gravy browning sauce, a squirt of Liquid Smoke flavoring sauce, plenty of black pepper, and a soup can of water. It was covered and left all day on the 'Low' setting. At around 2 PM, I threw a bowl of peeled pearl onions and a big container of quartered Crimini mushrooms into the pot and by 4 PM, Sunday Pot Roast dinner was ready for company. We had this pot roast with a big green salad, steamed green beans, chunks of Ciabatta bread for sopping up the gravy and glasses of Chilean Carmenere. It was delicious! Here's the recipe.

Sunday Pot Roast

Ingredients:

1- 4 to 5 lb. beef chuck pot roast, boneless and tied

salt and black pepper

1 tbsp. canola oil

2 cans of low-sodium cream of mushroom soup

1 envelope of Lipton's onion soup/dip mix

1 soup can of warm water

1 tsp. browning sauce

1/4 tsp. Liquid Smoke flavouring sauce

16 white pearl boiling onions, peeled and tipped

1 large (10 oz. ?) box of Crimini mushrooms, rubbed clean, stemmed and quartered

Optional: flat leaf parsley coarsely chopped for garnish

Making the Dish:

1. Rinse and dry the piece of beef. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on both sides of the roast.

2. Heat a large fry pan over high heat. When the pan is very hot, add the oil and swirl to coat the pan. Lay the beef in the pan and leave it for a few minutes to sear/brown. turn the beef to sear/brown all sides.

3. Transfer the meat to a slow cooker. Set the temperature to "Low" and cover.

4. While the slow cooker warms, place the soups, onion soup mix, Browning sauce, Liquid Smoke and water in a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

5. Pour over the beef and shift the beef a bit to get the sauce under it also. Cover the slow cooker and leave it for 6 hours.

6. At the six hour mark, add the onions and mushrooms and push them around to get down in that gravy. Cover and continue cooking for 2 more hours.

7. Transfer the meat to the center of platter. Arrange the mushrooms and onions around the roast. Spoon on some gravy and put the rest in a gravy boat. 

8. Garnish with parsley if you like and serve with crusty bread, roasted veggies, cheesy polenta, mashed potatoes or any other sides that will work well with the gravy.