Pot Roast with Rosemary and Thyme

Thought of the Day…Red meat is not bad for you. Now blue-green meat, that’s bad for you! ~Tommy Smothers

I was at the Farmer’s Market and bought a top round roast and wanted to prepare one that was tender and juicy.
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I grabbed my Pioneer Woman Cookbook and flipped it opened to the bookmarked Pot Roast recipe. YUMMMMM… it sounded perfect.

The Cast of Characters: olive oil, kosher salt, beef broth, black pepper, roast (duh), onions, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme… and missing in action were the carrots. They were shy when it was picture time.
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While the oven was preheating to 275 degrees, I followed Julia Child’s suggestion (rule) and rinsed the roast with water and then dried it with a paper towel. Julia said that you have to dry meat or it won’t brown properly. So I have made a habit to do this. (I will admit that I didn’t know this until I saw Julie & Julia – have you seen it?)
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After drying the meat, I seasoned it with the kosher salt on both of the large sizes. Pioneer Woman says to “generously salt”, but I was more reserved. If you look closely you can see the salt on the meat.
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I then heated the olive oil and sliced the onions in half and browned. As you can see I used a “splatter screen” as oil was popping everywhere! After the onions were done, I put them on a side dish.
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Then I browned the carrots – as you can see I used baby carrots as that is what I had in the fridge. Moving the browned carrots to the same side dish as the onions.
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Time to brown the meat… I browned it on all the sides. WATCH OUT for oil splatters!! I used tongs to hold the meat (sorry no pictures).
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When the meat was browned, I moved it to another dish and poured the beef broth into the pan and deglazed the bottom of the pan to get all the good crusted on bits off the bottom. The beef broth bubbled right up but simmered down (ha ha ha… no pun intended!)
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Now time to add everything back into the pot. I started with the roast and then added the onions and then the carrots. Then I added the rosemary and thyme sprigs (do not remove them from the stems). I covered and put into the pre-heated oven and cooked for 3.5 hours (I had a small roast).
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The wonderful smell emanated from the pot as I removed the lid….
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The meat was so tender and dinner was yummy… I added some of the broth as an Au Jus ,except do you see something missing from this plate????
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…I forgot to make a starch! Yep, no potatoes, rice or pasta! Silly me!!

Have you ever made a wonderful dinner and forgot to cook part of it?
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