by Naima El Safadi

Created on: January 26, 2007   Last Updated: September 14, 2010

If you are a busy professional/parent or just hate to cook, you know that you need fast, easy recipes that go further than one meal. This is an alternate way to make a no-fail crockpot/slow cooker pot roast that is sure to please. (Warning: there is absolutely nothing gourmet, chic, fusion or nouveau about this recipe, just good comfort food. If you are trying to impress business partners or future in-laws, this is not the recipe for you).

Ingredients:
1 roast*
2 cans of Campbell's Tomato Juice
1 pkg. baby carrots*
1 pkg. baby dutch potatoes*
Lawry's Seasoning Salt

1.) Place the roast in the crockpot. You may want or need to cut it into a few large pieces first. Season liberally with Lawry's (or another mix of spices if you want to get creative).

2.) Add the potatoes and the carrots to the crockpot.

3.) Open and pour contents of Tomato Juice cans onto the roast, potatoes and carrots in the crockpot.

4.) Place lid on crockpot. Turn crockpot on "Low". Walk away. There will be nothing for you to do with the contents of the crockpot for approx. 8 hours.

5.) After 8 hours, check on the roast. If the meat easily shreds using a fork, you are ready to eat!

Notes:
* Buying beef in the supermarket can be intimidating. For this recipe, the boneless variety of any of the following would work fine: chuck roast, round roast, top round roast, rump roast, or pot roast. You can also substitute stew meat and add one more cans of tomato juice for an easy beef stew. You may not need to cook it the full 8 hours for stew. For more information on buying beef, check out this guide: http://www.askthemeatman.com/what_to_look_for_when_b uying_beef_10300.htm

* The size of the package of baby carrots you use is dependent on how many carrots you want and also how many can fit in your crockpot. Also, if you like you carrots to be more crunchy than soft, you may want to wait to add them until after your meat and potatoes have been cooking for 3 hours.

* The size/number of potatoes you add is dependent on how many you want and the size of your crockpot. There are several options here - if you can find them in the supermarket, the baby dutch potatoes require no preparation time and can be added to the crockpot with the roast. If you can't find these, the small red-skinned potatoes are a good alternative (you may need to cut them into smaller pieces). I have also been lucky enough to find diced red-skinned potatoes already cooked and seasoned at Super-WalMart. These are a good option if you like bite size potato but for some reason do not own a good vegetable chopping kitchen implement.

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