Pot Roast

This past June, while traveling in our RV, we met up with out travel buddies in Indiana for a motor-coach rally. They are fairly picky about what they will and will not eat. It is always a challenge to choose foods that fit into their tastes. I have introduced them to new things over the course of our friendship, which haven’t always been successful. One of their tastes, is they like everything cooked to death. I decided to try my pot roast recipe on them, which I told them ahead of time, that it has a reddish cast to it due to the barbecue sauce in it. I figured they wouldn’t even try it if they saw the red coloring, since in their eyes, pot roast is brown with brown gravy. I normally buy a brisket to make the pot roast recipe, however when we were in Indiana I could only get a two-pound beef chuck roast. I cooked the entire thing and froze half of it. And actually I thought this cut was better suited for this recipe. By the way, our friends loved the pot roast! (The photo above is without the mushrooms as our friends don’t like them.)

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds beef chuck roast
2 sweet onions (large)
1/2 cup beef broth
1 pound crimini mushrooms
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup cream sherry (sweet)
1 cup barbecue sauce (I use Jack Daniels Honey Smokehouse)

Directions:

Place olive oil in a skillet on medium high setting and heat it up for a minute.
Add roast and brown it for about 5 minutes per side. (beware of the splatter).
While the roast is browning in the skillet, slice up onions and place them in the bottom of crock pot with broth.
Then add the roast on top without the drippings from the pan.
Place the lid on top and cook on low for 6 hours.
Clean and quarter the mushrooms and saute them in the butter until tender on a medium setting for about 10 minutes.
Add sweet sherry to skillet (watch out for steam!).
Mix with mushrooms and cook 1-2 minutes more.
Pour all the mushrooms and juices from skillet into the crock pot.
Add the barbecue sauce and cook everything in the slow cooker for an additional 2 hours.
After the 8 hours, pull the roast out of the crock pot and let it rest for 15 minutes, then slice it across the grain and place the meat back in the crock pot.