Dark Days: Beginning with pot roast

It’s a month before the winter solstice, and each day is noticeably darker than the last, so it’s time again for the Dark Days Challenge, organized by Laura at (not so) Urban Hennery. During this challenge, which runs from November 15 to March 31, sixty-five bloggers will cook, photograph and blog one meal each week focused on SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients.

For the challenge, I’m going to take my usual exceptions: spices, maybe some oils, and, if I include our breakfast in the challenge, coffee. Anything that someone brings me from its place of origin (such as the really nice bottle of olive oil that a coworker brought back from Italy) or that I bring back from my travels (Texas ruby reds, I’m talking to you) is also fair game. However, the only non-local ingredients in my first week’s Dark Days meal are spices.

I don’t remember eating pot roast when I was growing up. That’s not to say that we didn’t, but I don’t have the childhood sense memories of pot roast that I do of my mother’s chicken & rice, meatloaf or macaroni & cheese. Nor did I develop a taste for pot roast when I became an adult; my few experiences eating it left me believing it to be dry, stringy and flavorless. I never had any reason or inclination to cook a pot roast.

This summer, we went in on a “whole beef” with three other households (including Laura’s). When you buy your beef by the quarter, some of it’s going to come as pot roast. I made a spreadsheet last weekend to track the hundred pounds of beef in our basement freezer, and realized that we have six frozen slabs of meat – 21 pounds in all – that are, essentially, pot roasts. Certainly it must possible to cook a delicious pot roast; I was determined to learn how.

Of the pot roast recipes I considered, Elise’s recipe had the fewest ingredients, almost all of which are available locally: beef, oil (I used lard), salt/pepper/herbs/spices, onions, garlic, carrots and red wine. The recipe is simple, too: rub the meat with seasonings; brown well on both sides; set on a bed of onions and garlic; add a little red wine; cook tightly covered on very low heat for several hours; add the carrots and cook until everything is tender.

On a weekday evening, a dish that has to cook for several hours becomes tomorrow night’s dinner. When I got home from work, I seared the beef and slid it into a slow oven; the tantalizing aromas of cooking beef, onions and wine kept us company all evening. If the pot roast tasted half as good as it smelled, we were in for a treat.

The next evening, I reheated the beef, carrots and rich, gelatinous broth. Paul made buttermilk mashed potatoes. I paused long enough to photograph my bowl, and then we dug in.

Wow… pot roast is good! It may never be my favorite cut of beef, but I now know I’ll be happy to eat my share of the five frozen slabs of pot roast still in our freezer.

The ingredients for this dinner were brought to us by the fine people at:

• On the Lamb Farm, Arlington, WA (41 miles): beef
• Golden Glen Creamery, Bow, WA (64 miles): cream (for butter and buttermilk)
• Jones Creek Farm, Sedro-Wooley, WA (75 miles): garlic
• Skagit River Ranch, Sedro-Wooley, WA (75 miles): lard
• Alm Hill Gardens, Everson, WA (89 miles): onions, carrots
• Olsen Farms, Colville, WA (215 miles): purple Viking potatoes
• Covey Run Vineyards, Woodinville, WA (the winery) and somewhere in the Columbia River Valley: Columbia Valley Syrah