Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Crock Pot Balsamic Roast with Sweet Onions from Paleo Table

We recently had another cold snap here in Austin.  For me, that means I'm in the mood for meals that will stick to my bones and make me feel warm.  I found some lovely well priced boneless chuck roasts and decided it was time to search the internet and get my slow cooker ready. 

I came across this recipe for Crock Pot Balsamic Roast with Sweet Onions at Paleo Table and decided to give it a try.  


I started by combining the spice ingredients and the liquid ingredients in separate bowls.  



I placed the roast on a baking sheet to contain the mess as I rubbed the spice mixture all over the roast. 



Next, I sliced the onions to prepare a bed in the bottom of my slow cooker for the roast.  


While slicing the onions, I heated a 12" saute pan with some coconut oil so that I could brown the roast. I carefully used tongs to hold the roast on its sides so they would be brown as well.  Make sure you have your hood fan on high for this step as it will produce quite a bit of smoke.  


Once the roast was brown, I removed it and placed it on top of the onions in the slow cooker crock.  


The next step is to deglaze the pan with water and wine.  As my pan was nonstick there wasn't much scraping to be done to release the bits of roast left behind.  


I poured the liquid from the pan as well as the other liquid ingredients over the roast in the crock.  


Here is the roast right before I put the lid on.


Here is the roast after it cooked on low for 8 hours. 


Paleo Table includes a recipe for making cauliflower mash.  I did make some mash, but I made it my way.  Here is my plated roast.


I added a bit of the sauce and onions to the roast before sitting down to eat.  



Accessibility & Cost of Ingredients: You should be able to find everything you need for this dish fairly inexpensively at your "big box" grocery store.  My "big box" store does not carry smoked paprika.  I have to go to a more gourmet store for that.  

Preparation & Cooking Time:  It took me 25 minutes to get the roast ready to cook on low for 8 hours in the slow cooker.  

Clean Up:  Everything except my saute pan and wooden spoon went into the dishwasher.  

The Paleo Review:  Thumbs Up!  The roast was juicy, sweet and tangy.  Serve this with the sauce and some of the onions.  For goodness sake, do not throw out the onions.  The onions absorb all of the flavors of the seasonings and beef and are simply marvelous! 

I imagine this would freeze well, but I ate this continually for several meals it was so tasty until there was none left.  

If you're looking for a new easy tasty dish for your slow cooker, give this one a try.