One of my favorite food bloggers, The Pioneer Woman a. k. a. Ree, declared 2008 as the year of the pot roast, inspiring me to try my hand at one mid-western culinary stand-by I had yet to tackle. Mr. X could hardly believe that the simple perfection of a pot roast had never graced my kitchen, and to be honest, I could hardly believe it either. (And to be doubly honest, it still hasn’t; I made this at his house.) It’s not that I’ve never had pot roast before. I mean, I was born in South Dakota. But my mom wasn’t really one for cooking up huge chunks of meat, so it certainly wasn’t a staple dinner of my childhood. And I’m not really one for the huge chunks of meat, either. It never occurred to me to buy a huge beef shoulder or whatever it was I bought and throw it in a pot. Trust me, it will occur to me in the future. Often.
The beauty of the pot roast is twofold: It takes about three hours of oven time to properly cook a huge chunk of meat, enough time for your kitchen (or entire apartment, if you live in the city) to become warm and delicious smelling. This is splendid during cold, cold winters. And because you’re pretty much just leaving it in the oven for those three hours, the amount of effort you actually put into what amounts to a substantial pile of food is minimal. I like minimal. Oh wait, and there’s a third beauty: A pot roast doresn’t require a ton of expensive ingredients. I like inexpensive.
