Warm spices and slowly braised pot roast. Comfort food for the season!
I’m not sure about you but I certainly had my fill of turkey this year and was craving some red meat. With first blast of winter for the season making a good ol’ pot roast seemed like the perfect thing to make! I was chit chatting with a friend last weekend and we thinking about cool places to visit and Morocco came up as a place to go. Great markets to shop, spices galore, the Atlas mountains, Sahara Desert, huge history and friendly people are just a few reasons to travel there. As of right now, it’s on my bucket list so making this Moroccan Spiced Pot Roast is something that I could make now to satisfy (in a small way) my fantasy of traveling to this place some day! Anyway, in Morocco, they use a ton of spices in their cooking. All the “warm” smelling spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, turmeric, saffron, fennel and anise just to name a few. The good thing about this recipe is that it’s a great way to “use” up some of the spices that you probably already have in your cupboard, your house will smell so good while it cooks and that you make in one pot (or a crock pot)! My kinda cooking!
As you have probably guessed it by now, I love football and seem to have friendly bets on certain games with a buddy in Chicago. Two weeks ago the Bronco’s played the Bear’s and the bet was that the Bronco’s had to win the game by two points, not three or four but two! Well lucky me because that is such a strange bet and it actually happened. If I had lost the bet I would have to give up one of my bottles of Gossling’s rum from Bermuda and that would have been sad but I didn’t and I received this beautiful cheese basket from Kugel’s Cheese Mart in Wisconsin. My friend has been talking about this cheese and how awesome it is for years so I finally got to try it! Besides it being, OMG, yum it’s a family owned local business and we all like to support that, right? Anyway, trust me on this one, their gift boxes would make terrific holiday gifts! Make sure you get one with the spreadable cheese, so good! Besides the gift of “cheese” we got a gift of snow crab this week too! What a treat this was. A forever family friend was in town for the night on business from Alaska and he brought with him six pounds of Alaskan snow crab. Wow, I can’t remember the last time that I ate crab and now I’m sad that I can’t always eat it because I would. We all had a lovely evening catching up and having a truly beautiful meal! Check out the pictures!
Definitely try the Moroccan Spiced Pot Roast! It’s that good! 🙂
- olive oil
- 3-4 pound pot roast
- 1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup onion chopped
- 5-6 garlic cloves, left whole
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 cups baby carrots (or more)
- 8-10 baby new potatoes (or more)
- salt and pepper
- [br][b]For the spice blend[/b][br]
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp ground cardamon
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp granulated garlic
- 1 tsp ground mace
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp allspice
- 1 tsp coriander
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tsp ground anise seeds
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- Preheat oven to 300 degree’s
- In a bowl add all the spices, mix well and set aside
- In a large dutch oven (or crock pot) heat up olive oil. Liberally season the chuck roast with salt, pepper and spice mixture. Brown the meat on all sides. Remove from pan and set aside.
- In the same pan, add the onions and garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent (about three minutes).
- Add the roast back to the pan along with tomatoes, chicken broth, bay leaves and 1 tbs of the spice mixture.
- Cover the dutch oven and cook for three hours. Add the carrots and potatoes and cook for another hour or until the meat falls apart and the vegetables are cooked through.
I love winning football bets when this is the prize! Lucky me..
I love when friends visit from Alaska. They bring crab! What a treat for us!
I had to include this photo cause it’s just cool. An Evergreen, Colorado traffic jam!