*I came up with this recipe and it's my favorite for cooking a roast in the crockpot. The herbs give it tons of flavor! If you don't have fresh herbs just use dry (3 Tbsp Fresh = 1 Tbsp dry). If you don't want to use the wine you can substitute beef broth, boullion or water.
Herbed CrockPot Roast
1- 2 to 3 lb beef arm roast 16 ounces baby carrots 8-10 small red potatoes (peel a strip around the potato if desired} 1 large yellow onion (cut into 8 pieces) 5 cloves garlic, minced 3 TBSP fresh rosemary (or 1 TBSP dry) chopped Several fresh basil leaves or 1 tsp dry basil 1 large bay leaf 1 tsp celery salt 1 tsp kosher salt 1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce 1/2 cup red wine (or beef broth, boullion or water if desired) Lots of fresh ground black pepper
4 TBSP Flour or Cornstarch for Gravy 1/2 cup water
Rub roast with kosher salt and pepper to taste. Place roast in crock pot. Place carrots, onion and potatoes in pot, sprinkling some onion on top of the meat and placing carrots and potatoes around the edges. Sprinkle minced garlic, rosemary, basil and bay leaf over veggies and meat. Mix wine and soy sauce together and pour into pot and over veggies and meat. Pepper well and sprinkle with celery salt. Cover and cook on high for 6-8 hours.
To make gravy, remove meat and veggies from pot and place on serving platter. Remove bay leaf. You should have about 2 cups of pan drippings to start with, if you don't add more broth or wine to equal 2 cups, more than 2 cups is ok. Mix approx. 4 TBSP flour or cornstarch with 1/2 cup cold water in a jar. Shake well until flour and water are combined. Pour into hot roast drippings in crock pot. Keep on high and stir well. Cover. Gravy should begin to thicken and cook about 15 minutes. Add more water or broth if it's too thick, more cornstarch or flour slurry if it's too thin. Remove gravy from crockpot and stir in 1/2 cup sour cream, if desired.
