A few weekends ago, my family and I headed out for the day to go do one of our favorite fall family traditions- visiting a farm a couple of hours away and spending the day there picking apples and pumpkins, taking hayrides, and navigating the corn maze. Before we packed up the car and headed out, I started dinner. Yes, I started dinner at 10:30 in the morning. I love my Crock Pot. I do. It gets so much use and love especially during the fall and winter seasons. On this particular day, I wanted to make a lovely roast I had picked up from my local farmers market the weekend before. So, I browned the roast, cut up the potatoes, and dumped everything into the Crock Pot. We came home over 8 hours later to dinner being ready and the house smelling delicious.
What you will need:
1 beef roast (about 2- 2 1/2 lbs)
Salt & pepper
1-2 tbsp of olive oil
12 oz bottle of beer, room temperature (The darker & more complex the beer you use, the deeper the flavor. I used a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale.)
3 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped
1 1b. of potatoes (I used Rose Finn Apple Fingerlings, but any small potatoes will work- I cut some of the larger of the potatoes in half.)
About 2 cups of baby carrots
1 package of dry onion soup mix
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the beef roast with the salt and pepper. Once oil is heated, add the roast to the skillet and brown well on each side.
Layer the carrots and potatoes on the bottom of your Crock Pot. Place the browned roast on top. Sprinkle the garlic and the soup mix over the roast and vegetables.
Now comes the good part. ;) Pour the beer over top of all of this.
Cook on Low for 6-8 hours.
I made a delicious brown beer gravy to pour over the roast. This is completely optional, but it is so crazy easy to make that you had might as well just do it...
Melt 2 tbsp of butter in the skillet that you browned the roast in (don't wash it, okay?). Once melted, whisk in a few tablespoons of flour. Let this cook while whisking for about a minute. Take a few ladles of the sauce that has been slow roasting in your Crock Pot all day, and add it to the butter/flour mixture in your skillet. Continue whisking until smooth and thickened. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Spoon generously over your sliced roast.
It was so nice after a long day of being outdoors and driving to come home to a delicious home cooked meal just sitting there in the Crock Pot, ready for us when we walked through the door. The roast was tender and fell apart with a touch of the fork. And the beer offered so much flavor to everything!
What is one of your favorite meals to slow cook in your Crock Pot all day? :)
