Pot Roast

By Peggie

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 lb of beef shoulder or boneless chuck roast
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Salt, pepper & Italian seasoning to taste
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped or sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/2 cup red wine
• Several carrots, peeled and cut lengthwise

Details

Servings 4

Preparation

Step 1

Use a thick-bottomed covered pot, such as a Dutch oven, just large enough to hold roast and vegetables. Heat 1 tbsp oil on medium high heat (hot enough to sear the meat). Sprinkle and rub salt, pepper and Italian seasoning all over the meat. Brown roast in pot, several minutes on each side. Don’t move the roast while a side is browning or it won’t brown well.
When roast is browned, lift up the meat and add garlic and chopped onion to the bottom of the pan. Let the roast sit on top of the onions. Add ½ cup red wine. Cover. Bring to a simmer and then adjust the heat down to the lowest heat possible to maintain a low simmer when covered. (We cook our roast o the warm setting of our electric range).
Cook for 3 ½ to 4 hours, until meat is tender. If you are using a pressure cooker, cut the time by half. Near the end of cooking add carrots and cook until tender.

After cooking 3 ½ hours; before adding the carrots; note how much liquid has been released by the meat. This comes from slow cooking at a very low temperature. If your pot roast is too dry, make sure the pan you are using has a tight fitting lid and that you are cooking at the lowest possible heat to maintain the low simmer.
Serves 4
If you use a gas range, you may find difficulty getting the flame low enough. A tip I recently read suggests tightly rolling up some aluminum foil, shaping it into a skinny donut and putting that on top of the burner to create a little more distance between the range and the pan. If your roast is turning out to o dry, you might want to try this tip.