Pot Roast Stew

I love using up leftovers, especially when I can turn them into an entirely different meal.  Bonus points if I can do so without leaving for groceries.  These sorts of accomplishments make me feel clever and industrious.

On Sunday, it looked like this outside:

It was so pretty!  It was also cold, slippery, and wet.  Once we got home from church, I wasn't too keen on leaving again for any reason.  Luckily, I didn't have to!  The last time we were visiting my in-law's, my mother in law make French onion soup.  From scratch.  It was oh so good, and she sent a gallon freezer bag of the stuff home with us.  French onion soup is one of those things I don't generally make, mostly because cutting up that many onions makes me leak from all my face holes.

I had thawed out the bag of soup sometime mid-week, and still had quite a lot left.  It was still tasty, but I was growing a little weary of having onion soup, and the snow made me want a really hearty meal.  I landed on potroast.  I pulled a beef roast out of the freezer, and a bunch of carrots out of the crisper.  I don't think I've ever made potroast before, so I went on an internet quest to make sure I had a good method.  When it comes to hearty beef-centric dinners, I think of the Pioneer Woman.  She did not disappoint.  I found this recipe on her blog.

First I cut my carrots into chunks, and tossed them in a cast iron pot with a little olive oil.  I cooked them over high heat until they started to take on some color.  Like the Pioneer Woman, I did no peel my carrots.  These carrots are from my CSA subscription, and I know they were organically grown.  I also think that leaving carrots unpeeled when cooking them helps them to stay a little firmer.  I hate mushy carrots, so this is a goo thing.

After I was done with the carrots, I pulled them out and put my roast in.  I seared it on each side for about a minute or so.

Does anything smell better than searing beef?  Maybe garlic cooking in butter...

When the roast was nicely seared, I pulled it out of the pot and deglazed my pan with a half cup of red wine.

Everyone in!  It was at this point that I started to wonder if I shouldn't have found a larger pot.

Then I thought, "meh," and poured as much of the onion soup over the roast as would fit.  In retrospect, I really should have either put less soup in, or found a larger cooking vessel.

I put a lid on the pot, and popped it in the oven at 275 degrees for three hours or so.

After three hours were up, I took my pot out of the oven and pulled all the solids out of the broth.  I shredded the roast with forks and set it aside.

I put all the liquid in my gravy seperator to get rid of as much of the fat as I could.  There wasn't as much grease as I had expected, because most of it had boiled out and was all over the floor of my oven.  Mmm.  Lesson learned.

Everything went back in the pot.  I could have eaten it at this point, but I decided to put it back in the oven to warm back up first.  I served my pot roast stew over baked potatoes, and it was good.