Pot Roast

Hubby and I recently became members of the M.F. Dulock Pasture Raised Meats "meat club," wherein for a certain set price each month, you get a minimum of 5 pounds of the butchers' selection of various meats and offal, plus bones for stock above and beyond that 5 pound base weight.  This month, included in our bag (which incidentally weighed a good amount over the 5 pounds) was this beautiful two-pound bottom round.  We decided to turn into a pot roast.

We did our Googling, and chose to base our efforts on this recipe by The Pioneer Woman.  We of course, as usual, added our own twists and turns to it.

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 275-degrees.

Step 2: Generously salt and pepper the meat.

Step 3: Roughly chop a whole onion and toss it into a large enameled cast iron pot (or whatever oven-safe pot with a lid that you have) along with a couple tablespoons of very hot (but not smoking) olive oil.  Cook them for a few minutes until they start to turn brown:

Step 4: Remove the onions from the pot and repeat the quick browning procedure with some chopped carrots.  You  may or may not need to add a little more oil to the pan -- you be the judge....for the record, I didn't add any myself.

Step 5: Remove the carrots from the pan and brown the meat on all sides, again adding a touch more oil if you think you need to.  I did choose to add a little oil at this point.

Step 6: After removing the meat from the pan, deglaze it using a little bit of red wine (or beef stock or water if you don't have wine).  Pictured below is the wine the we happened to have sitting around last night, so that's what I used.  I only used enough to barely cover the bottom of the pan, though, because I needed to reserve about 2 cups of it for another upcoming recipe.  I wanted more liquid than that for deglazing, however, so I added a little of my homemade beef stock, too.

 

Step 7:  Here, because I wanted more vegetables in our final dish than just carrots and onions, I opted to chop up two russet potatoes and a few mushrooms.
 

Step 8:  Now it's time to put it all back in the pot.  First, in goes the meat.  Then, pour in as much beef stock as is needed to cover it about halfway up.  Next, toss in all the veggies.  Finally, top it off with Rosemary and Thyme....as much as you like, and fresh if you have it (we used dried).

 

Step 9:  Put the lid on your pot and bake it all together for about 2 hours.  (I think the rule is about an hour per pound of meat.)  We happened to let ours go for 2 hours and 20 minutes.

This is what it will look like when it comes out.  Try not to dive in too fast, though....it's very, very hot.  Plus, you still need to make the gravy.

Put the meat on a plate to let the juices redistribute, and scoop the vegetables out of the pot, leaving all the liquid still in there.

Bring it to a boil on your stovetop to reduce it down as much as you like.  We let it boil for 5-10 minutes, then used a cornstarch slurry to give it one final thickening.  (I know that some schools of though, including my beloved A.B., frown upon letting corn starch anywhere near gravy, but since I am currently not eating wheat unless it's necessary or a special occasion, we opted to skip the usual flour route -- it still tasted great.)

 

Slice up your meat, plate it with a scoop or two of the veggies, top it with the gravy, and enjoy!!

Everything was delicious, and the meat was so tender.  The only thing I would do differently next time is perhaps cook it for a little less time, because the potatoes were squishier than I would have liked and meat on the rarer side is always preferred in our house.  But other than that, it was a definite success that we are happy to have lots of leftovers of for lunches.