Pat’s Pot Roast #2

Did I mention that I don’t care for beef?

It’s no secret that I would never be the poster child for the beef council.  I don’t have a particular moral issue with it, I just don’t don’t like the texture or the way it tastes.   Unfortunately, beef seems to be the one thing that is regularly on sale and when you are trying to balance a dwindling food budget and accommodate a very expensive gluten free diet, you sometimes have to face the choice of eating things that you don’t like.

Last summer I suffered through weekly steaks, this past winter it was pot roasts.  Needless to say I have been forced to come up with a variety of pot roast recipes that are easy to cook, tasty enough for my non-beef-loving palate and of course, gluten free.

Ingredients:

• *2 – 3 pound roast
• 5.5 oz can tomato juice
• 1 cup beef broth
• 1 tablespoon beef broth
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
• 2 tablespoons Soy Sauce
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons dried minced onion
• thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper to taste
• onions, quartered
• carrots, peeled and cut into large pieces
• potatoes, cut into large pieces
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• 1 cup beef broth

* Most recipes call for a 3 – 4 pound roast, but since there are only two of us and I don’t really like beef, I usually buy one between 2 1/2 – 2 3/4 pounds.  This recipe works fine for a larger roast without making any changes.

Also, I am not picky when it comes to cut of meat.  Top round, bottom round, shoulder round or chuck, it doesn’t matter.  Whatever is on sale is what gets put in the pan.  It would have to be an extraordinarily tough piece of meat not to spend several hours cooking in liquid to not end up tender.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350⁰

1. In a small bowl whisk tomato juice, beef broth, Worcestershire, soy sauce, brown sugar and minced onions and set aside.
2. Heat a large dutch oven on the stovetop.  While pan is warming, rub spices on roast and set aside.  Add oil to pan and brown meat on all sides.  Remove from heat.
3. Pour tomato/broth mixture over meat in dutch oven.  Cover and roast meat approximately 3 hours.  (1 hour per pound.)  If you don’t have a dutch oven you can transfer the roast from your frying pan to a large casserole dish or roasting pan and cover with foil.
4. Add vegetables to pan during the last hour of cooking.
5. Once meat is cooked and vegetables are tender remove from pan oven and reserving liquid (in the pan), place meat and vegetables on serving platter and cover with foil.
6. Return pan with remaining liquid to the stovetop.
7. In a small bowl stir 2 tablespoons of corn starch into  1 cup of beef broth until dissolved.
8. Add corn starch/beef broth mixture to the dutch oven, cook on medium heat until the liquid thickens, stirring frequently.  Try not to let the gravy boil.  The gravy usually takes about 15 – 20 minutes, though I have had to let it go as long as a half an hour.

There you are.  A super easy, budget friendly, just like Grandma used to cook, old fashioned pot roast.  Okay, so my grandmother didn’t actually cook much, but her dad owned a butcher shop and she did like a nicely cooked piece of meat.  And with pot roasts on sale every week week for about $1.89 a pound you are looking at a pretty substantial meal for about $2.50 a serving.  In case you are wondering, the pot roast and vegetables in the picture will go two dinners and one to two lunches in our house.  Not too shabby.  (It’s also not fully cooked…I took the picture when I added the veg, but didn’t have time to get another shot when it was done.)