Slow Cooked Roast with Carrots and Onions

Good Morning, dearies! Hope your weekend was everything you wanted it to be. We watched the big BYU vs San Diego State b-ball game on Saturday and that was definitely the highlight of my weekend! Did any of you guys watch the game? Soooo RAD. Ok, enough of that.

I've got to come right out the gate and say that this dish is worth making for the carrots alone. AMAZING. This happens to be a slow cooker recipe (angel chorus!). This slow cooked roast is a cut above the rest, because it comes from Martha, so you know this recipe has been meticulously fine tuned in their test kitchen before it hits the press. I thought it was genius how they included cornstarch in, so a gravy is made while it slow cooks. I'd never thought of this before and I sorta geeked out about it. I did, however, make a few tiny tweaks: like instead of 8 medium sized carrots, I used a whole 2 lb bag (highly recommend). The recipe calls for a chuck roast, but when I went shopping the chuck roasts didn't look so hot, but the rump roasts did. That's what you see in the picture. I also used beef stock instead of the water because I had some in my fridge, but I'm pretty sure they don't ask you to use beef stock in the original recipe because it only calls for 2 tablespoons and they don't want you having to open a whole 32 oz carton of stock only to use a tiny amount. Just call me Columbo.

Oh, and I also need to add that I made some mashed potatoes to go with this because we ate this on a Sunday and I felt like we needed a little more of a "spread", but that is up to you. For a weeknight meal, I don't think you need to do that.

Recipe (yields 8)

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 tablespoons cold water (I used beef stock)

2 lb bag of carrots, peel and cut carrots into thirds

2 medium onions, each onion cut into 8 wedges

1 beef chuck roast (3 pounds), trimmed of excess fat (I used a rump roast)

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Coarse salt and ground black pepper

In a slow cooker, stir together cornstarch and 2 tablespoons cold water until smooth. Be careful to use a utensil that won't scrape the finish on the pot of your slow cooker. Add carrots and onion. Season with salt and pepper, and mix to combine.

Sprinkle roast with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Place in slow cooker on top of vegetables. Drizzle with Worcestershire. Cover and cook on high for 6 hours or low for 10 hours. I cooked mine on high for 6 hours and the meat still came out tender and shreddable.

After roast is finished slow cooking, transfer to a cutting board and thinly slice against the grain. Place vegetables and sliced roast in a serving dish. Pour thickened pan juices through a fine mesh strainer, if desired. Serve roast and vegetables with the strained gravy on the side. Enjoy!

image by Briana