Cooking to relieve my poor aching brain...

Cooking is a huge creative release for me. And because my job is so technical in nature, I desperately need that release sometimes. So, on the days when it feels like my brain is going to explode or when I'm so stressed out I can't think straight, I turn to cooking or baking or sewing to give myself a little break.

I had a pot roast and a half empty jar of spaghetti sauce sitting in the fridge that was going to go bad. From that, came this.

Pot Roast and Carrots
6 to 8 lb pot roast
2 tsp oil
1 medium yellow onion
1, 8 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 jar traditional spaghetti or marinara sauce
1 lb carrots
Salt and Pepper to taste


Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add pot roast to pan. Sear on first side 3-5 minutes, then flip to do the same on the other side. Once the roast has been seared, add onion, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, and salt and pepper to the pan. Thin the tomato sauce with as much water as desired. The sauce will thicken as it cooks. Once the sauce has been thinned, add the carrots. Cover the pot and continue to cook for 2-3 hours, until the meat is tender. A good tip to keep the fat content down is to skim the fat from the pot with a large spoon towards the end of the cooking window. The resulting cooking liquid (grease free) can be used to make gravy for mashed potatoes.

Most of the pot roast recipes I've seen cook the roast in either the oven or a crock pot. This recipe could be cooked in either of those ways. This just seemed to work well for me.