Let me start this post by making an admission: I know absolutely nothing about cooking red meat. If it’s not ground up for use in chili or tacos I’m at a complete loss. It scares me because it’s expensive and there are about 1,001 ways in which to screw it up. I married a man who loves meat and potatoes. He never complains about what I make for dinner. If it’s hot, he’s happy. He even eats the leftovers that I can’t stomach (except for that eggplant pasta recipe from a few weeks back, but no one could have eaten that). Because of this, I found myself putting pot roast on the menu for this week despite the fact that meat scares me and I don’t really like pot roast. (I figured I’d start in slow with the meat preparation by making something in the crock pot where everything magically comes out moist.)
I started out with this recipe. I figured that over 4,000 reviews was enough for me to trust the rating. Also, anything with cream of mushroom soup and an onion soup packet sounds good to me. I made the following changes/substitutions:
- I used 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup
- I used a sirloin tip roast instead of the specified “pot roast” (and to be honest I’m not even sure that this is a substitution, since I don’t know what a pot roast really is…I just knew that sirloin tends to mean less fatty and it looked like a big hunk of meat in the package, which is what I envision when I hear the term “roast”…plus it wasn’t completely exorbitantly priced, so I just bought it…)
- The roast was around 3 pounds instead of the 4-5 the recipe indicated. It would take us a week to eat a 4-5 pound roast…
- I cooked it for a shorter period of time on high (I did about 6 hours instead of what the recipe says–which I think was 4 hours)
- I added a bunch of baby carrots since as I mentioned before, I don’t really like pot roast in general, but I do like the baby carrots that go with it, so I made sure to hedge my bets on this one
Here it is, in process:
Here’s a very happy Matt, carving up the roast:
The second recipe is called “Cowboy Mashed Potatoes.” I followed the recipe on this one for the most part as well. Here are the changes:
- I used minced garlic (since that’s what I had)
- I used canned diced jalapenos (I made the mistake once of using a fresh one and despite using gloves there was a lot of residual burning in the eye and face area despite the fact that I tried really hard not to touch anything, so I decided it wasn’t worth it…I used what looked like the equivalent of one diced pepper)
- I added fat free sour cream at the end (about a cup) to make it creamier
Here’s the finished product:
The pot roast was okay. I asked Matt how he’d rate it and his answer was “average” although he followed it up with this caveat: “run-of-the-mill pot roast is high on the scale of things to eat.” In short, he was thrilled with his dinner. The gravy that it makes is really good, and the carrots were perfection. I think it’s the texture of pot roast that doesn’t thrill me, and this would have been dry without the gravy, but I’d definitely eat it again (which is good because we’ll have it for several nights).
The potatoes were very tasty and although I had to boil the mixture for around 35 minutes (instead of the 15-20 that the recipe indicates) they were very easy and came together quickly after the boiling was finished.
Here’s a picture of the completed stick-to-your-ribs dinner:
I do feel a little like a stuffed pig (there’s a reason that “meat and potatoes” is synonymous with a hearty meal), but everything was good and I made my husband happy, so that’s a win in my book.