It was one of days when you feel so tired and you don’t want to be stressed some more by cooking a complicated dish. I can’t even bring myself to get up from the couch let alone cook. But if you have a family who depends on you for their sustenance, then you’ll have to force yourself to move. I normally cook the night before because I work full-time and have to leave some lunch for the children for when they come home from school.

I spent some more minutes trying to think of a stress free recipe. The first thing that came to my mind was my slow cooker. I know I can rely on it to cook our meal without much fuss but the question still remains. What to cook?

I remember I have beef round in the freezer and some potatoes and carrots. Potatoes, onions and carrots are some of my kitchen staples. I make sure that I always have some because 1) they do not spoil as quickly as other vegetables, 2) they go with most recipes that I use and 3) it is my way of ensuring that we have some vegetables in our meal even though its been a while since I went grocery shopping.

Then I quickly went on the Internet to check for some beef pot roast recipe. I did not really follow the recipe but picked up some idea instead as I only have the basic ingredients and as I mentioned earlier I want stress free cooking.

This is how I made my beef pot roast. I am not able to give the measurements but the beauty of this recipe is that it is not sensitive to measurements and you can just go with what suits your taste buds.

Ingredients

Beef round or beef chuck

Potatoes

Carrots

Onion (I just used 1 medium sized onion and quartered it)

Celery (optional, I just happened to have some in the fridge)

Beef stock or beef cubes dissolved in water

Salt and pepper

Instant Gravy (like Gravox)

Cooking oil

Pour a small amount of cooking oil in a pan and brown all sides of the beef to seal in the juices. Then arrange the beef, vegetables in the slow cooker. Pour in the beef stock or dissolved beef cubes in water. Make sure that there is enough to cover the meat. Add a little bit of salt and pepper then switch the slow cooker on. 

Our slow cooker only has 3 settings – low, high and auto. I never figured out how to use the auto so its either low for 6-8 hours or high for about 3-4 hours.  As I was cooking for the next day’s meal, I set it for 8 hours.

When I woke up in the morning, I removed the meat and vegetables from the slow cooker and prepared the gravy. I used the liquid from the pot roast then added some powder instant gravy. Slice the meat and arrange the vegetables on a platter before pouring the gravy.

Other articles you might be interested to read:

The Latest Buzz in Cooking: Slow Cooker Is The Way To Go 

The Essentials of a Successful Stir Fry

Chillies in My Backyard