Slow Cooker Pot Roast

I made a really good pot roast in my slow cooker recently. It came out fork-tender and delicious. I'm going to make it again soon, because using a four-pound roast fed us for about a week. The leftovers were great for sandwiches and brown-bag lunches. If you're watching your sodium intake: this has quite a bit! I used low-sodium broth, and we didn't end up consuming most of the cooking liquid, so it probably provides less net sodium than it seems.

I have a 6.5-quart slow cooker. If yours is smaller, you may need to scale this back a bit. But again, this was a really big roast so you should be able to do a 2.5-3 pounder easily in a 5-quart pot.

Slow Cooker Pot Roast

1 4-pound bottom round roast
2 tsp flour
1 tsp seasoned salt
¾ tsp fresh ground pepper
½ tsp paprika
½ tsp meat tenderizer
2 Tbsp butter or olive oil
1 lb carrots, trimmed and halved
1 lb red potatoes, halved
1 Tbsp fresh /1 tsp dried parsley
1 Tbsp onion flakes
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp celery salt
2 bay leaves
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 quart low-sodium beef (or vegetable) broth
½ cup Worcester sauce
½ cup red wine
1 large onion, quartered


Directions:
1. Mix flour, seasoned salt, pepper, paprika, and meat tenderizer. Rub this mixture all over the roast.

2. In a large skillet, heat butter or olive oil. Brown the roast on all sides in the skillet.

3. While the roast is browning, add carrots, potatoes, parsley, onion flakes, onion powder, celery salt, bay leaves, and minced garlic to the bottom of a 6.5-quart slow cooker.

4. Remove the browned roast from the skillet and place in the slow cooker. Deglaze the hot skillet with the wine, scraping up the browned bits with a spatula. Pour this mixture into the slow cooker over the roast.

5. Pour broth and Worcester sauce, over the roast. Place ¾ of the onion around the edges of the roast, then separate the layers of the remaining ¼ of the onion and place them on top of the roast.

6. Cook on low for 8-10 hours, until very tender.

In a fog

It's been really foggy here the past few mornings. Driving to work makes me feel like I'm going blind.

Today is the first day since last Saturday that I don't have a headache. Headaches are stressful, and they give me weird dreams. Last night I dreamed I was trying to kill an alien facehugger with a baseball bat while on a camping trip. I woke up stressed and tired. That's not very restful, subconscious.

We finally finished the series run of 90210 on Tuesday. Something like 297 episodes covering 10 years, watched in about eight months. We're not going to know what to do with all this free time now, and the TiVo may have a nervous breakdown.

The tomato plant in the Topsy Turvy seems to be surviving. I tried to move it to the front yard for more sun, but we can't find anything that can support its weight.

The AeroGarden is still going strong. I can't keep up with its basil production; I think I'm going to have to make pesto out of self-defense. Which is fine, because pesto is delicious.