Nothing says, come in from the cold and cozy up like a pot roast dinner. This is easy to make in a slow cooker or in the oven when you are doing other stuff around the house. I made this one using my Lodge cast iron Dutch oven.

Start with a chuck roast. I usually find ones about 2.5 pounds and that’s enough for a couple of leftover meals for two adults. I find I usually have more leftover veggies than meat. Which is fine for me, but adjust accordingly as you like.

Preheat your oven to 350. Salt and pepper your roast and then brown it in fat on medium high in a Dutch oven or other pan that can go from the burner to the oven. I never seem to get this as seared as I think it should be.

While your meat is browning, chop up an onion or two and a couple cloves of garlic. Grab some thyme from the garden if you have it. Maybe warm up your broth if you feel like it.

Set your browned meat aside and sauté the onions in the same pan. Once the onions are tender, pour in up to a cup of red wine. I never want to seem to give up this much of the wine I’m serving with dinner, so usually just deglaze the pan with about 1/3 of a cup and call it good. Add the meat to the onion wine mix, add thyme, garlic and bay leaf, then cover with broth, so that the meat is submerged and bake at 350 for 90 minutes.

In preparation for phase 2, chop up carrots and potatoes, which you’ll add to the pot after the 90 minutes and cook an hour more.

I like to separate the meat and veggies from the stock and boil the liquid down a bit while I’m getting everything ready. I serve mine with a bit of creamed horseradish and the au jus.

Simple Pot Roast

• Beef chuck roast, 2-3 pounds
• 2 yellow onions
• 1/3 cup red wine (that you like)
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 quart broth (or more)
• 4 carrots
• 2-3 pounds red potatoes

Horseradish Cream

Stir one tablespoon prepared horseradish into 1/2 cup sour cream.

A couple of notes from this, I put my veggies underneath my roast, but in future I’ll do them on top so the meat stays submerged. I had a three pound bag of potatoes and used them all. Which was not proportional at all to the meat I had, but I used the leftovers for a nice hash topped with a fried egg.

Because I’m having a bit of a love affair with broth, I saved all the extra from this and used some to make an incredible rice dish. There’s more in my freezer that I’ll put to good use soon.