foodtvandme.com is the unofficial food network fansite with news, reviews, and my attempts at those great recipes you see on tv.

This week’s recipe was an ambitious attempt on my part.  I decided to try to make a pot roast.  Me and slow cooking don’t go together, but I saw Dave do this so easily, and inexpensivley, that I thought I could give it a whirl.  I had carrots and onions, so all I had to do was pick up some potatoes and a piece of beef, and I was set.  Fortunately for me, pot roast meat was on sale.  I forget what kind of roast it was, but it did say “Pot Roast” on the label, so I thought I couldn’t go wrong.

Weekly recipe attempt: Red Wine Pot Roast with Honey and Thyme

Things were going smoothly with this recipe, in the beginning, anyway.  I did a fine job at browning the meat.  I managed to set it aside while the vegtables sauteed without dropping it on the ground.  I didn’t burn the vegtables.  I put the lid on it and managed to get it into the oven without incident.  Everything was cooking.  Everything was bubbling.  I was patiently waiting for a couple of hours.  Things were going well and I was very engouraged, until, to my peril, I had a lightbulb moment.  The meat that I had bought was significantly smaller, I mean about half the size of Dave’s meat, which meant, it needed less time.  Oh no.  I had this lightbulb moment fairly late in the game.

When I took the pot out of the oven, things looked ok.  I tried a carrot.  It was cooked.  A bit sweeter than I thought it would be (more on that later) but my panic began to subside.  I then cut into the meat.  It wasn’t pot roasty at all.  It was flakey and not in a good way.  I was saddened.  This is the problem with slow cooking.  You look forward to something for two hours or more, and if it doesn’t work out, you just wasted two hours and have no food.  I, however, thought that perhaps, covering it with gravy would make things better.  Covering any food with gravy or sauce usually does a pretty good job at covering the flaws. 

I poured the gravy over the mound of food, and things, once again, seemed ok.  But (remember the carrot) when I tasted the gravy, it was sweet.  Really sweet.  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what I was expecting or what I was looking forward too.  Maybe it was supposed to be that way, and I just didn’t care for it.  I tried to add salt, lots and lots of salt, but it didn’t work.  Maybe I shouldn’t have substituted red onions for white.  Maybe the sweetness was too much, but I doubt it.  But in any case, it wasn’t the deliciousness I was expecting. 

I think it will be a while before I attempt another slow cooked meal.  I give this pot roast a 5 out of 10.