Supper Sunday- Pot Roast

Every Sunday we try to have a hearty, delicious home- cooked meal; hence Supper Sunday. This may be one of the few dinners during the week that I enforce the "if you don't eat what I cooked, you eat nothing at all" rule to Luke, since I know he would actually love it- if he would just take a freaking bite and try it!! Also, I LOVE doing a meal one night that I can turn into leftovers and completely different meals for the next couple of nights to come. My mom calls it frugal. I call it smart ;)

The recipe I am going to share with you for tonight's dinner is what I think of as a classic pot roast.  From the time it begins to cook, the roast makes the entire house smell so delicious. I'll make a roast year round, but nothing is better than cooking one during the winter when you can hang around the house in comfy clothes and enjoy the wonderful smell all day.


This is the way that my mom has prepared a roast for us for as long as I can remember, and it's the only way I cook one now. Not only is it beautiful, but it is sooo good and equally as easy. My mom has always done hers in the oven, but for some reason, I prefer to cook my roast in the crock pot.

Ingredients:
3- 4lb boneless pot roast- You can pick whichever cut you prefer the most based on tenderness, juiciness, etc., but I usually get a chuck roast or eye of round roast... Depending on what my local grocery store has on sale.
1 packet of Lipton Recipe Secrets Onion Soup & Dip Mix
4 large carrots- peeled & cut into rectangular pieces
4 large regular or red skinned potatoes- I skin the regular potatoes, but only clean the red skin potatoes, and quarter them both

Directions:
Put the roast in the crock pot and evenly cover the roast with the Lipton Soup Mix
Add water half way up the sides of the roast
Add potatoes and carrots around sides of the roast
Cover and cook on high for 4- 5 hours. If your dinner will be cooking all day while you're gone, set your crock pot on the low setting. The idea is that the roast is done cooking when it reaches 160ish degrees, so you can just set your crock pot on warm after the roast reached that temperature.
If the veggies aren't tender and cooked all the way by the time the roast is done, I put the veggies and the broth from the roast in a pan on the stove top and boil them for about 10 minutes. My mom would definitely use the broth to make a gravy, and serve over white bread and the veggies, but we nix the gravy in the name of staying healthy.

ps: Here is a dirty, embarrassing little secret- I dip my roast in ketchup (shriek!) because it adds the perfect twang. Mmmm!

Leftovers:
My absolute favorite part of making a roast are the next few lunches and dinners that follow. All you do is cut your left over roast so that it is shredded or into chunks and put it on your bread and *voila* you have delicious roast beef sandwiches! You can use mayo, lettuce, tomatoes, mustard, cheese, heat it up or eat it cold. Your options are endless!

Thank you for spending part of your Sunday with me. From my kitchen to yours, I hope you love this meal as much as I do :)  

{FUN FACT} Did you know...
Leftover Snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply chop them up in the food processor. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Put the apples in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Serve alone with vanilla ice cream. Yum!!!