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Cooked low and slow on the stovetop, beef chuck or shoulder roast becomes a fall-apart tender pot roast. Onions, garlic, carrots, and red wine make this a satisfying, flavorful dinner. Pot roast was a standard growing up, and still continues to be in my parents’ household. It requires  slow cooking over low heat  to ensure tender, flavorful meat. WHAT MAKES THE BEST POT ROAST? Pot roasts typically use the tougher cuts of beef—a chuck roast or shoulder roast—which have the most flavor. Slow cooking at low heat is what melts the tough connective tissue between the muscle fibers, leaving you with tender meat that pulls apart with your fork. ⇆ For pot roasts, and other slow cooked tough meats, fat is your friend! Not only does fat deliver flavor, it helps keep the meat from drying out in the long slow cooking. So look for cuts that are well marbled with fat. Another tip? Let the roast sit (wrapped) for one to two hours outside of the refrigerator so that it comes closer to room temperature

Pressure Cooker Pot Roast shaves some time off oven-cooked and slow cooker methods. You can also cook the veggies right in the pot, making it an easy one-pot meal. Pot roast usually takes a long, long time to cook—all day in the slow cooker, or at least 3 hours in the oven. But when you make it the pressure cooker, you can have a tender, flavorful roast (complete with all the vegetables and sauce!) in about two hours. Even better, the recipe is super flexible—you can start cooking the pot roast any time of day, leave it on the “Warm” function once cooking ends, and then complete the last few steps about 20 minutes before you want to eat. ⇆ Whether you’ve planned ahead or not, whether you’re home during the day or not, you can have a hot, beautiful pot roast on the table for dinner. POT ROAST FOR CHILLY WINTER DAYS When the weather turns chilly, I start craving hearty, braised dishes like pot roast. In this recipe, tangy balsamic vinegar, rosemary, and sweet onions combine to flavor the

Italian pot roast! Rump or chuck beef roast, first browned in olive oil, then slow cooked in a sofritto base of carrots, celery, and onion, with Italian plum tomatoes and red wine. A few weeks ago my mother and I attended a cooking demonstration by our local celebrity Italian chef, the delightful Biba Caggiano. We Sacramentans are proud to call Biba our own; she has a fabulous restaurant, is the author of several cookbooks, and for a while hosted her own cooking show on the Discovery Channel. One of the recipes Biba demonstrated during our evening with her was her “Stracotto di Manzo alla Fiorentina” or “The Braised Beef of Florence”. Biba, in her typical down-to-earth manner called it “nothing more than a glorified pot roast”. ⇆ It’s a simple and delicious recipe, much like our standard pot roast but with a soffritto base, the addition of tomatoes, and a whole bottle of wine. Italian Pot Roast Recipe Prep time:   10 minutes Cook time:   4 hours Yield:   Serves 8 INGREDIENTS 3 1/2 to 4

Enjoy the flavors of North Africa with this Moroccan Beef Pot Roast! With classic Moroccan spices -- coriander, turmeric, ginger, and cumin Pot roast is such a comforting, all-American dish; you almost don’t want to mess with it. Almost. When you add North African ingredients such as turmeric, ginger, cumin and coriander, along with pomegranate juice (for a little sweetness), you end up with something new, a bit exotic, and altogether fantastic! As the cold weather wears on, we want comforting, cozy meals but we also want to mix things up a bit so we don’t get bored. Here’s a chance to do that. ⇆ Slow braising, like we’re doing for this pot roast, means cooking foods in a small amount of liquid in a pot at a steady, moderate temperature. This transforms tough cuts of beef, like chuck or brisket, into something so tender you can pull it apart with a fork. Low and steady heat breaks down the collagen (the connective tissue that holds the muscle fibers in meat together) and allows the mea