Anna's Pot Roast

I am writing this on Monday, May 23 and it is still raining…..I should have the windows open or have the A/C on, but instead I just turned up the heat. I should be BBQing for dinner tonight but instead I am making Pot Roast. It is a “comfort food” type of day but is it May or is it February?

Pot roast is an easy dinner to make and allows me lots of breaks to drive around town – still haven’t found shoes for the prom yet – and if softball does happen tonight, this can be ready before the game and also reheated after the game. Pot roast takes 5 hours to cook but you can make it take more time if you need to. The roast can cook for a long time and not get overdone. It is the vegetables that will get too soft if they are cooked too long. So if you are late getting the vegetables cooking
or the timing works better for your day if you cook the meat longer, the meat can handle it.

This meal does require the vegetables to be put in at different intervals, but the timing can be very flexible. Ten to fifteen minutes either way on the vegetable cooking time won’t make that much difference.

There are so, so many pot roast recipes, but this is my favorite.  It was given to me by my neighbor Anna and so I have always called it “Anna’s Pot Roast” but I found out recently that Betsy actually gave the recipe to Anna. So thank you to both of my friends!

This recipe is also “budget friendly” since I use a Chuck Roast which is an inexpensive cut of beef.  This meal will warm up my house today and make it smell so good, and since it is so miserable out, I need my house warm and comforting.

Anna’s Pot Roast

Ingredients

3 -4 lbs of Chuck Roast. I get the biggest I can and it is usually about 3-4 pounds.

2 cans of cream of mushroom soup

2  packages of instant onion soup mix

2 lbs of peeled, baby carrots

6-8 peeled, small onions. I hate peeling pearl onions so I use small onions
about the size of golf balls

5-6 potatoes, peeled and cut in half. I sometimes put in sweet potatoes, too.

1  - 8oz. package of sliced, fresh mushrooms

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Put the chuck roast in a large baking pan. Cover roast with the mushroom and onion soups and cover pan tightly with tin foil. Bake for 2-2 ½ hours.

Then add the carrots and baste the roast. Cook for 1 hour.

Then add the onions, potatoes and mushrooms. Baste the roast and cook for 1 ½ hours. The meat should just fall apart and the vegetables should be soft after this.

Reheating this meal in the microwave is easy. How much you are reheating will determine how long to reheat, but you can use full power the whole time.

When I cook this I can smell it as soon as I pull into my garage after all my running around town. Now that is comforting.