Serin McDaniel- 06:32 am PDT - Aug 18, 1999 -#572
I believe that Walt Whitman loves me personally.

Oh -- and here's how I make pot roast in the crockpot. It's based on a recipe from Ready and Waiting, but I've made quite a few changes.

Serin's CrockPotRoast

Buy a 3-pound bottom round roast. Brown it in about 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat until you think you'll never get the smell out of the kitchen again. (The idea is to get all the sides of the roast nicely browned; you certainly won't get it cooked all the way through like this.) Set it aside on a plate.

You should have some fat left in the pan but not too much (if it's too much, pour some of it out)(not down the sink! Pour it into an empty can or milk carton and throw it away later). Chop a couple of onions and sautée them in this fat until they're softened. Add 4 ounces or so of sliced mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms start to release liquid. Scrape the vegetables into the crockpot, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and add a bay leaf.

Some people like to add a sliced carrot or a diced potato at this point. I don't. I'm not a fan of cooked carrots, and I don't need potatoes because i always serve this dish with mashed potatoes wherein a couple of peeled cloves of garlic have been boiled and mashed with the potatoes.

Put the browned roast on top of the vegetables in the crockpot, along with any juices that have accumulated in the plate.

Next, pour a cup of red wine (or water, or a mix thereof) into the pan and stir it over medium heat until all the brown stuff on the bottom of the pan has been dissolved into the wine. Pour the wine mixture over the roast and vegetables.

Now here's one place where the recipe and I part company. Roast recipes always say to roast for 6 to 8 hours. I've found that at the Low setting, you have medium-rare roast beef after about 3 hours. I usually just stick a meat thermometer in the roast and leave it there while it cooks, and then check on it periodically. (I know; this means you can't cook dinner while you're at work. But you can cook dinner while you're out in the yard.)

When it's all done, put the roast on a cutting board. Use a slotted spoon to pull out the mushrooms and onions, and put them in a serving bowl. Now get a frying pan and melt a tablespoon of butter in it. Add a tablespoon of flour and stir it for five minutes or so. Then pour the accumulated wine-water-meat-cooking-broth stuff from the crockpot into it (in a slow stream) and whisk it. Cook it until it thickens. Voila -- red-wine gravy.

Man, I can't possibly be hungry at this hour of the morning ...