My wife, Mrs. CB, dearly loves what she calls Roast Beast. Of course that’s a term borrowed from the Whos of Whoville but it’s a terrific term for one of the most versatile meals that you can make.
Versatile? Oh yeah, there’s all kinds of things you can do with it. You’re not confined to roast beef followed up with left-overs of dried out roast beef followed up with sandwiches of even drier roast beef unless you really have a desire to work out your molars and jaw muscles.
And it’s easy. It takes little time to prepare it for cooking and then the cooking is “hands off” using a slow cooker.
This is going to be the first in a series showing what can be done with “Roast Beast”—and the leftovers I’ll describe are only about half of the dishes I know of that you can make. Sometimes we’ll make this just for the “leftovers” because we enjoy those dishes so much.
But first, you have to excuse me because there aren’t that many photos of the process and the “plated” dish is after we had eaten “firsts” and so there were very few potatoes left. Sometimes I get excited to eat the meal and forget to get photos—especially one like this which has made my kitchen smell so good for 4 or 5 hours!
Recipe: Roast Beast–Slow Cooker Pot Roast
Summary: Nothing smells better cooking or tastes better than slow cooked pot roast. Here’s an easy, inexpensive way to do it.
Ingredients
- 1 3-4 lb boneless chuck or round roast (London Broil)
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup beef or chicken broth
- 2-3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1-2 tbsp Soy Sauce
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 2-3 bay leaves
- 1 medium onion
- 2-3 medium potatoes
- 1 ½-2 cups carrots cut in ½ inch chunks
- Black pepper
- Salt
Instructions
- Get out your slow cooker (or a dutch oven if you don’t have a slow cooker).
- Put in the water and chicken broth and turn the temperature to high.
- Take out your meat and season it with salt and pepper. Then sear the meat—either on your grill or stove top in a large heavy skillet. To sear it will take 2-3 minutes per side on high heat.
- Remove the meat to the cooker. The liquid should go about halfway up the sides of the meat—you want a slow braise not an immersed boil.
- Add Worcestershire, soy sauce, garlic powder and bay leaves. Taste it! Add some pepper and salt (to taste, if needed).
- Cover the cooker and let it cook for about 3 hours.
- Chop the onion, cut the potatoes into 1” chunks and the carrots into ½ inch chunks.
- Add vegetables about 1 1/2 -2 hours before eating. Taste the juices occasionally and add more seasoning if needed.
Preparation time: 15 minute(s)
Cooking time: 5 hour(s)
Number of servings (yield): 4
My rating 5 stars: ★★★★★ 1 review(s)
Serve this as a Roast Beast dinner in a big bowl or on a plate with some homemade bread or a loaf of purchased French bread. You’ll have enough for leftovers. And, we’ve been known to cook this up and then ONLY do leftovers for several days of lighter meals. Take your pick.
Oh man, this smells fantastic cooking. It tastes great and just falls apart (shreds). The vegetables absorb the flavor and liquid and all but melt in your mouth. It’s classic!
Over the next few days I’ll be doing Part 2 and Part 3 and each of those will include a couple of “leftover” meals using the shredded beef in different dishes. These will be great for lunch or a light dinner for the family.
The Cheap Bastid Test: Well, let’s start with the overall cost of the whole thing. It’s really reasonable and by the time you do a couple of meals of leftovers it gets even more reasonably priced. The whole trick is having leftovers! The meal We did the other night was a 2 ½ lb. boneless chuck roast and there were NO leftovers! Three of us ate the whole thing! So, I bought a 4 pounder on special at the store on Friday for the next time. Meat cost: $7 (2 ½ lbs). Potatoes: $.50 Onion: $.25 Carrots: $.50. Broth: $.35 Seasonings: $.50. Total: $9.10 or about $3 each. Not bad and if we weren’t “starving” we might have had some leftovers!
So check back the next few days for different ways to make leftovers out of shredded “Roast Beast”.
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!
