Sunday Pot Roast

Almost every Sunday, when I was growing up, my mom would put on a roast before we left for church on Sunday morning.  It was a favorite Sunday tradition.  The house would smell absolutely wonderful when we arrived back home, and we could hardly wait until she got dinner on the table!  We always refer to this meal as Roast, Potatoes, and Carrots instead of Pot Roast.  And though I don’t fix it every Sunday, I do try to make it on those Sundays when all of my kids are home for the weekend, like they were this Memorial Day weekend.  It’s such a treat to come home from church with the aroma of this meal greeting you at the door.  I always make a batch of buttermilk biscuits to go along with this.

Ingredients:

Amounts are flexible. Just use the amounts you would need for your family.

1 chuck roast (buy the size you need for the number of people you will be serving.  I used a 2  3/4 lb. roast for my family)

1-2 onions, peeled and halved

carrots, peeled and halved (I used about 3 lbs. for my family)

red potatoes, peeled- whatever amount you need for your family (it’s important to use Red potatoes, they hold up better in the long cooking time without turning to mush.  Believe it or not, I use a 5 lb. bag of potatoes every time I fix potatoes for my family, whether it be potatoes in this Pot Roast recipe or whether I’m making mashed potatoes)

1 can beef broth (or water)

1 pkg. dry onion soup mix

If you want to make gravy, you’ll also need a few tablespoons of flour and water

Directions:

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a Dutch oven or roaster.  Pepper both sides of the meat and sear on high heat on both sides until nicely browned.

Once meat has browned on both sides, add 1 can beef broth (or about 1 cup or so of water) and sprinkle the meat with 1 pkg. of Lipton’s dry onion soup mix.

Place a tight fitting lid on the Dutch oven and bake the roast alone for about an hour at 325 degrees, then I add the vegetables and bake an additional 2-2 1/2 hours.  I almost always make this on Sundays, so the timing of it has alot to do with what time I think we will get back home from church and what time I have to put it in before we leave for church.  Having a programmable oven timer really helps.  You can set it to turn off after the specified time whether you are home or not, and it’ll be hot and ready for you in the oven when you get home from church.

While the roast is cooking, prepare the vegetables.  Peel the carrots and cut them in half lengthwise.  Peel the potatoes and leave them whole unless they are really big.  Cut the big ones in half.  The onion adds a really nice flavor even if no one will eat them, but we like the cooked onion at our house so they always get eaten.

If you are preparing the vegetables ahead, cover them with water so the potatoes don’t turn brown.

After one hour of baking, remove the roast from the oven.

Add the onion, potatoes, and carrots to the roast in the pan.  Just make sure the lid will still fit tightly on the pan after you’ve added the vegetables.

Start by pressing potatoes around the roast, pushing them down to wedge them in tightly.  Keep adding vegetables until you have the pan full.  Sprinkle the vegetables with salt and pepper, place the lid back on and return to the oven.

Cook for an additional 2 to 2 1/2 hours or so at 325 degrees.  When done, remove from oven and remove the vegetables and roast from the pan.

You can thicken the pan juices to make gravy.  Heat the pan juices over high heat.  Mix about 3-4 Tablespoons of flour with about 1/2 cup of water. Stir it together with a fork to get out most of the lumps.  There will be a few lumps, but don’t worry about it.  Pour flour mixture through a strainer into hot pan juices to catch the lumps.  Stir the pan juices as you do this.  It helps to have an extra set of hands for this step.  Anna pitched in to help me (those are her blue nails not mine!)

If you want, you can add a teaspoon or so of “Kitchen Bouquet” to darken the color of the gravy.  It’s just a little secret ingredient that is used to give gravy a darker richer flavor.

Serve the gravy with the roast, potatoes, and carrots and you’ve got an awesome Sunday dinner that your family will love.  Mine sure did!