Beef Roast with Rooster Potatoes and Baby Carrots

Something happens to you when you ‘retire’ and become a grandma. You start eating out all the time. Well, truthfully, it started before I left my job, and BEFORE I became a grandma, now that I think about it!

Maybe it has more to do with having spent years in the kitchen, planning menus weekly and just being the chief cook and bottle-washer!

Well. No matter. However it happened, we had begun eating out way too much. And you know… and I know… that food prepared in eateries is often not the healthiest choice!

So one of my goals for 2014 is to get back to cooking decent meals on a regular basis.

Tonight’s meal was:

Beef Roast with Rooster Potatoes

and Baby Carrots

And what is a Rooster Potato, you ask? Well, I had never heard of them either. I really went looking for red potatoes, and these were so good-looking that I decided to try them! And they are quite delicious!! If you want to find out more about them click here. First cultivated in Ireland, this gem of a spud made its way to the US within the last decade!

I got out my {relatively} new slow cooker and set to work in the late morning. A good cut of roast should cook for approx. 6 hours in a slow cooker. This cut is a rump round roast. It was a lot bigger than the picture shows, but we were ready to eat before I had shot the photos, so half of it is already gone!!

Here’s the recipe:

• 3 lb. Round rump beef roast
• 4 lbs Rooster potatoes
• 1 lb. baby carrots
• 1 lg. onion, quartered
• 1/4 c. Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 tbsp. Soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. powdered onion soup mix
• 1 c. water
• salt and pepper to taste

Now the order in which you do the next few steps is pretty important. Wash and quarter the potatoes. Into the crock-pot they go. Then the carrots and quartered onion. The roast goes on top, fat side up. I usually don’t sear the roast first, but you can if you want a browner look to the meat. Then I sprinkle the onion soup mix on top, mix the sauces with the water and pour that over everything.

Slow-cooking doesn’t take a great deal of liquid, so don’t use too much. I typically don’t add more salt and it usually comes out fine. The sauces and soup mix have plenty of salt in them.

I like to start it off on HIGH for  2-3 hours, then switch to low for another 3-4. But if you’re away from home, you can cook on HIGH for 5-6 hours or LOW for 8-10 hours.

Enjoy this slow-cooker classic! Bon Appetit!!