A almost always cook a pot roast on the stove top. There have been a few occasions when I did it in the oven for one reason or another....but 99% of the time I do it in a Le Cruset oven on the stove top. I learned that 300 or 325 is way too hot in the oven. If I need to put it in the oven, I try to keep the temperature just at the boiling point...and that is 212....about half way between 200 and 225. If cooking on the stove top...know your stove....this cook top needs to be on the lowest simmer setting AND have a flame tamer beneath the pot too...my son's new stove will keep a pot at a perfect simmer without any tamers or diffusers. I much prefer cooking a potroast on the stove top...that's the traditional way and I like it best. And frankly my Le Cruset Dutch Oven stays cleaner....doesn't get those burned on spatters on the sides. I very rarely cover the meat with the liquid...but on the occasion when I knew I would have a lot of grand kids eating mashed potatoes and gravy I have. I don't find there is a problem with texture...no more than with the texture of the beef in a stew. As for the liquid being insipid...not really!...since the liquid consists of wine, beef broth, caramelized onions and garlic and other stuff. If you are using water to cover the meat, it very well mey be insipid and watery...but wine, broth, some onions, garlic a bit of bay leaf and perhaps some dried porcini make all the difference. And as a "cheat" if your gravy lacks something...add some beef stock base....and don't tell! I do it pretty much the same way Bumblebeez does, but I don't add the flour with the onions...."They say" that cooking a thickened gravy a long time causes it to be less thick....easy enough to correct...but worth remembering. Linda C

Posted by arkansas_girl "Wouldn't a piece of meat cooked for two days at such low temps(129F) be spoiled? I don't get those super low temps? The meat certainly looks like it would taste good but doesn't seem hot enough to even kill the bacteria etc." That is a very important question. Very important. Fortunately today with internet, you can check out all kinds of information, and you do need to go to multiple sources to confirm your information. I am not going to be very specific, just some general ideas here. The general guideline given by the authorities are safe to the extreme, they need to account for all those young, old and the immunological challenged. Furthermore, to make things simple, the guidelines do not take into account the time factor. In other words, when they say (again, I am not giving any specific information here, just talking about concepts) 160F is safe for chickens, they are not telling you that is also safe for 150F if you cook at that temperature for 30 minutes, and 140F for 60 minutes. For beef, (for me, may not be for you) it is generally very safe that you can eat raw beef, if the beef is handled properly. Since you can not be sure of if the outside of the beef is handled properly, you can sear/torch using quick high heat to sanitize the outside before you cook the meat in very low temperature. It is entirely not recommended to eat raw ground beef because you cannot sanitize ground beef. There are charts available showing safe temperatures for all kinds of meat based on time and temperature. dcarch

Then may I suggest a Dutch Oven? Brown the meat in a little bit of fat...oil, bacon grease whatever. Brown slowly so all sides are nice and browned. add a chopped onion a clove or so of crushed garlic, about 1 1/2 cups liquid...either beef broth wine, beer veggie broth or a mixture of some of the above and scrape up the browned bits in the pan, cover and place in a 225 oven for 3 or 4 hours, depending on the size of the piuece of meat, add your potatoes after about 1 1/2 hours....and I like to add carrots too at that time. Thicken the gravy with a slurry of a little more broth/wine and flour and serve with the meat. Much better than cooking it to mush in a crock pot. Linda C

I agree, Louise, I want beef rare. Really rare. gyr, you won't get any flack here either. I often pour a can of Coke or Dr. Pepper over a ham, and then glaze it during the last hour, some of my family likes the really sweet and crunchy outside edges. meyati, I also don't feel that good beef needs any "help", other than salt and pepper. My own ham was nice and moist, with a crunchy outside layer of brown sugar and mustard. I like pineapple but The Princess does not, so I didn't use that. We are having a LOT of leftovers, including some in today's bean soup. dcarch, I'm not a huge fan of ham either, it's definitely something I can take or leave, but the family loves the stuff. My ham wasn't cheaper, though. I bought a whole hog locally for $1.29 a pound, and that included packaging. Since packaging is usually about 50 cents a pound, that made my pig 79 cents a pound, based on hanging weight. However, anything I wanted smoked was an additional 99 cents a pound, so ham costs me nearly $1 a pound more than fresh pork does. Same with bacon. Annie