Yankee Pot Roast

 

I've been wanting to give y'all a pot roast recipe for a while.  In fact, I have three good ones.  Rarely, though, do I find a roast cheap enough to make a whole meal for under ten dollars. 

 

 

 

Last week, however, I lucked out - this little beauty (little, because it's only 22.4 oz, giving each of us only 5.6 oz of meat) was only $6.01

 

I started on Sunday evening, putting everything (including the frozen roast) in my crockpot liner to marinate overnight in the fridge.

An entire bag of carrots (12 big, 2 little) was only 98 cents last week, and an entire bag of potatoes was only $1.99.  Since each large carrot, diced, made roughly a serving size, I diced 4 for this roast.

I also scrubbed and diced 5 "medium-sized" potatoes, leaving the skins on. A good rule of thumb is 1 and a half potatoes for each adult serving.  5 potatoes was waaaay too many.



The marinade was as follows: 3/4 cup vinegar, 2 tsp minced garlic, 2 Tbsp salt, 1 large, diced onion, 2 Tbsp brown sugar, 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp mustard, 1 dried bay leaf.  Bay is a strong spice and you only need 1 whole leaf in the marinade.  Add enough water to cover everything, put a lid on it, and refrigerate overnight.  If you are going to use a fresh pot roast (rather than a frozen one) you should brown it in a frying pan before slow-cooking it.

The next day I put the roast on low while I went to work, turned it up to high when I got home, and it was ready and delicious Monday night without having to cook after a long day at work.

I served it up all "fancy",

scooping out the roast first and then the carrots and potatoes with a slotted spoon. 

 

Dessert was yet another faux pumpkin cheesecake (since cream cheese was back down to 99 cents a brick and I got 2 of these... um... pumpkin-y things for $1.50.  Only used 1 to make the cheesecake.) I made a sugar-cookie crust this time, crazy-easy: 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/3 cup vegetable oil, 2 Tbsp water.  Mix everything in a large bowl, press into the pan like a graham cracker crust.  (Actual recipe calls for no cinnamon, but 1/4 tsp vanilla. I thought the substitution would taste better with the pumpkin.  Consider it a "snickerdoodle crust" if you will...)

 

So our total Monday night was... roast (6.01) 4 carrots (slightly less than 1/3 of a 98 cent bag, or 32 cents worth) 5 potatoes (about 1/3 of my $1.99 bag, or 67 cents), and the marinade (not more than $1).  Cheesecake was 99 cent brick cream cheese, 75 cent pumpkin thing (honestly don't know what kind of squash it really is) and various ingredients in the crust and pie probably totaling 50 cents to a dollar, making the pie $2.74.  We ate 3 slices out of 8 (since Luke was full and didn't want any) making the cost of Monday's dessert $1.03.  Total is $6.01 + $0.32 + $0.67 + $1 + $1.03 = $9.03

 

And the Snickerdoodle Pie crust was DELICIOUS.