A friend of mine gave me this recipe, and it made the best pot roast we've ever had. I just did a search and found it on-line, so I didn't even have to type it out! Lisa's Lazy Pot Roast from The Complete Meat Cookbook Ingredients: 1 tsp. dried thyme 1 Tbs. chopped fresh rosemary or 1 tsp. dried rosemary 1 Tbs. paprika 1 Tbs. Kosher salt 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper One 4 lb. boneless beef chuck roast or a beef brisket, trimmed of most fat 2 Tbs. vegetable oil 1/2 cup water or beef or chicken stock, or more if needed 5 cups thinly sliced onions (about 3 large) 6 chopped garlic cloves Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste Preparation: For the flavor step, combine 1 teaspoon dried thyme, 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary, 1 tablespoon paprika, 1 tablespoon Kosher salt and 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper in a small bowl. Rub the meat thoroughly with the mixture. You can cook the roast immediately, but it will taste better if it sits for an hour or two at room temperature or overnight in a zipper-lock bag, or well wrapped, in the refrigerator. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large, heavy casserole or Dutch oven, heat the vegetable oil over medium high heat. Brown roast on all sides, about 7 minutes. Remove and set aside. Pour off any fat from the pan and deglaze the pan in water or stock, scraping up any browned bits with a wooden spoon or spatula. Put the roast back in the pan, cover it with 5 cups thinly sliced onions and 6 chopped garlic cloves, cover and bake for 1 hour. Remove the cover, turn the roast over so that it is on top of the onions, and continue to cook, uncovered, for another hour, adding more liquid if needed. Stir the onions around after about 30 minutes so they can brown more evenly. Replace the cover and continue to cook for 1 hour more, or until the meat is fork tender; brisket will take a little longer than chuck. Remove the meat from the pot and let it rest, covered loosely with foil, while you prepare the sauce. (At this point, you may refrigerate the pot roast for later reheating. Refrigerate the cooking liquid separately. To serve later, remove any congealed fat from the cooking liquid and strain it before using it to reheat the meat gently.) To serve, strain and defat the sauce. Taste for salt and pepper. Cut the meat into thick slices or separate it into chunks. Spoon some sauce and onions over for serving. Serves: 6 Chef's Note: If you are in a hurry, you can eliminate the herb rub. In fact, if you are really in a hurry, do not bother with the browning. Just put the roast in a heavy casserole, smother it with the onions, and cook it as described above. You will be amazed at how good it is, and you family will think you have been slaving away at the stove all day.

Copy and pasted to try, San, thanks! We love pot roast, we'll be trying this one hopefully over the weekend! We love the Frug's pot roast you posted, too!

Thank you for your well wishes, Linda. I've decided that widowhood is definitely not for the faint of heart. I've been a member of the club for ten plus years and although I'm a strong and stubborn ole Yankee who tolerates living alone perhaps better than most...there are times when it's more challenging than I would wish. I have no children of my own and the very few relatives that remain are too far away to be part of my active life. My neighbors are a self-absorbed lot not open to sharing much of anything with their own let alone with a single old lady. I learned very early on that married couples of almost any age bracket in this area do not want to socialize with single women...no matter what their age. They're really rather a strange collection and one of these days before I take my final trip...I plan to write about this entire experience. I've lived all over the world and I've never seen a population such as this. I don't know if they're a sign of the times or just a local oddity. Unfortunately...I don't have the option of moving so I just meander through daily life enjoying it through my eyes...giving and helping where I can...and ignoring the lesser attractive parts. It seems to be working! I would love to have some Le Cruset pieces but with the glass top stove...and my own slowly failing eyesight...it's probably safer that I don't. It's beautiful cookware. :-) When I bought this stove I bought a new edition of flat bottomed cookware from Cuisinart that has turned out to be a wonderful asset. It conducts heat very easily and evenly...and performs miraculous fetes over very low temperatures. I think its performance is probably why I've never invested in a crock pot. But once the holidays have passed and shopping becomes less of a physical challenge...I plan to take a look at what's available just to satisfy my need-to-know. Happy Thanksgiving, Linda...and once again...thank you for your help.

Here is a very streamlined version of how I like to do prime rib. It is from a very long-time chef. As for my methods these days I'll give you the condensed version of my methods, sans any recipe ingredients for a 3-4 Rib Roast. Sightly more time in the oven for larger roasts. * Season 24-48 hours in advance and air dry in refrigerator * No need to bring roast to Room Temperature. * Remove roast from Fridge and place directly into a oven set for 200-225* *Searing on stove or Browning in oven is optional but browning is not necessary. *. Roast bone side up for first half of roasting time, then flip and rotate roast and pan. *. Estimation of time from fridge to serving 5.5-7 hours. 3.5-5 hours Primary roasting with a 2 hour hold. The difference between 3.5 and 5 depends on the size of the Eye on the Roast from the source due to the different breeds of cattle available and purchased. * It really nothing more than placing the roast into the oven, flip and rotate hallway through and reducing the oven thermostat at the end of estimation of Primary Roasting time. Hold and ready to serve. If you have the patience to allow this to develop, you'll end up with a foolproof way to end up with an exceptional roast without fear of overcooking......the only requirement is the use of a Digital probe thermometer, which you obviously got covered.....but I have done this without the use of a thermometer and every roast has been exactly as expected with a finished result of Medium-Rare. I just realized I don't have a note about what temperature to turn the thermostat down to after the Primary Roasting time is completed. Have emailed the chef and hopefully he will respond to my query. Received a response form the chef; hope this helps. His method truly ends with a wonderfully delicious prime rib. My preferred Thermostat setting is 140* in a gas oven. More modern ELECTRIC oven go only as low as 170*. If that's the case, then simply place a WOODEN spoon between the door and oven to keep the door ajar. Assuming a Digital Probe Thermometer is being used, she can monitor any temperature rise. Should that happen, then she can just shut the oven off. Assuming the large roast is 4-7 Ribs she's going to need a minimum SEVEN hours using 225* . Planning on NINE hours to complete the task can only help, as it has an unintended benefit of holding the roast longer. I typically hold my roasts 2-5 hours Using SEVEN hours as the example: let's say she wants to serve dinner at 4:00PM. Deducting the TWO hour hold bring you to 2:00PM when you anticipate hitting the TARGET temperature and dropping the thermostat to 140-170*. The FIVE hours for Primary roasting from Fridge to Oven brings you down to 9:00AM when you need to get the roast into the oven. Getting back to NINE hours, all that means is if you get the roast into the