Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Beef Roast in the Slow Cooker

There are many days I feel like putting on one of my June Cleaver dresses and my apron and making a roast. Yes, that is my goal in life, to be a stepford wife. Ok, not entirely, but I do epitomize the 1950’s.

Great things came from the 1950’s. My parents for one, great fashion, and great down home meals that still get ‘staple standard rewards’ in my kitchen.

Truth is, I would love to be home all day to cook. Even though I absolutely love it, I don’t have that kind of time and the last thing I want to do when I come home from work, is stand in front of the stove (then spending the remainder of my night cleaning up). I do this many nights. The great thing about this recipe is its easy clean up, it’s little effort, but gives great rewards.


1-2 lbs. rump or round beef roast ( I found a nice English Roast)
5 carrots, peeled, chopped into ¾ inch pieces
5 red skin potatoes (you could use 2 russets if you want)
½ (about ¾ cup) Spanish onion or yellow onion, chopped
1- 4oz.package button mushrooms (you can use any mushroom type you like)
1 ½ cups water or beef stock
¾ cup red wine (please make sure this is a ‘drinkable’ wine meaning, NOT cooking wine)
salt/pepper


Directions:
Chop up carrots, potatoes into chunks, add to bottom of slow cooker, season lightly with salt and pepper.

Add water/beef stock to slow cooker.
Season beef with salt and pepper.
In a heavy bottom skillet, heat until hot. Pour in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add beef and sear on all sides. Put beef in slow cooker on top of carrots and potatoes.
In the same pan you seared the beef, add a few more tablespoons of olive oil and add chopped onion. Cook until translucent. Turn up the heat and add red wine and scrape up any browned bits from the pan with a wooden spatula. Cook down for a couple minutes. Add to crock pot.
Add Mushrooms to the crock pot on top of the beef.
Put lid on, and set timer to 8-10 hours on LOW.

No comments: