Toaster Oven Tuesday, Week 51, 2015

We're getting awfully close to the end of the year now.  My cell phone calls the last week of December, Week 53.  Funny.

For this week, I had a big old chuck roast that I thought I'd try by mostly following a method posted by Pioneer Woman, found here.

 I think my big Lodge cast iron skillet could be seasoned better.  That's a few tablespoons of olive oil getting ready to heat up.

 A couple of onions cleaned and quartered and already seared a little bit.  Same for the mushrooms which were my own addition and not in PW's recipe.  I had them, I wanted them, and they were GOOD!

 Searing up the carrots too.

 The roast seasoned with salt & pepper and just hanging out while I seared up the veggies.

 Oh, I did mention salt & pepper, right?  Be generous on the salt.

 What? No individual photo of the seared roast?  Nope, I forgot! until I'd already added all the veggies back to the pan. And I'd deglazed the pan with beef broth (from a can) and added the whole can to the pan.  I also forgot to take a shot of the foil wrapped over the top - I don't have a lid for this pan, and I don't have a Dutch oven, bt this large skillet fits in the toaster oven perfectly, on the lower rack setting.  I'm thinking this is a moist roast since it's covered, and I roasted it for three hours at 275F.  PW says to roast until it falls apart; mine wasn't quite that well cooked, but was cooked well enough.

 I transferred the roast into the serving dish and cut it into chunks and then scooped out all the veggies placing to one end.  There was a lot of juice in the skillet, so some of that was poured over the meat & veggies.  Oh, I forgot to mention, I didn't have fresh spices so used just a little dried thyme and rosemary crushing it before putting over the top during the last half of the roasting time.  With the remaining juice, I poured it through a strainer into a saucepan and thickened it with flour to make gravy.  To that I added about a teaspoon of beef bouillon because it seemed to need to taste a little beefier.

For additional sides, I boiled some quartered potatoes and reheated some leftover green beans and then just piled it altogether on my plate and pouring gravy all over everything.  Yum, this was one of those warm you to the bones, love in a skillet, comfort foods.  I should make it more often.  

Another successful dish from Toaster Oven Tuesday.