Crock Pot Roast with Potatoes, Carrots, and GRAVY!

Ah gravy, how I love thee.  We are having a cold dreary day here and I was craving some comfort food, food with gravy, specifically.  There are very few things that I love more than homemade gravy! We don't make it often, but when we do, you can bet that there isn't any of it leftover!  For this meal, I made a roast in the crock pot with carrots and potatoes.  Then the gravy went on top of everything!  I also made biscuits to go with it.  The pot roast is actually really simple, and I don't have a specific recipe, but this is what I did.

I put the roast into the crock pot and because of time restrictions I cooked it on high for 4 hours.  If I had more time I would have done it on low for 8 hours since that tends to make the meat more tender, but this turned out great.  After I put the roast into the crock pot I washed and chopped up 5 potatoes into large chunks and put them around the roast.  Then, I put in the baby carrots around the roast as well, I used about 2 big handfuls, sorry I didn't measure.  I added about a cup of chicken stock (this is just what I had, if I had beef I would have used that).  Then I added about a tablespoon of worcestershire sauce and about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar (this is a little different, but I really love the taste!). I sprinkled everything with salt and garlic powder pretty liberally.  I let it cook and I stirred the veggies and broth about once an hour just so nothing dried out.

Once it was done, I made the gravy.  This was super easy as well.  If you have never made it, you really should try it!  It is so simple but makes a big impact on the meal.  It is also so much cheaper to make it than to buy it.   So, you start with 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet on medium heat.  Wait for the butter to melt all the way.  While it is melting, ladle the liquid out of the crock pot where the roast is cooking, you are going to use those juices to make your gravy.  I'd say try to get close to a cup (less is OK) out but it's really not necessary to measure, just get most of the juice out and set it aside.    Once the butter is melted, you want to sprinkle 2 tablespoons of flour into the butter and stir it well until all of the flour is incorporated into the butter and you can't see any more of the flour.  Don't let it sit this way too long, you just want it well mixed, not over mixed.  Then slowly start to add the liquid from the crock pot into the butter/flour mixture.  You want to stir really well as you are doing this.  Keep stirring and try to get all of the lumps out by mashing them down until they break up and mix into the gravy.  Once your gravy starts to bubble, turn the heat down to low.  This is the point that I added a little bit of salt and garlic powder to my gravy just because I felt it needed it, but that is up to your taste.  Keep stirring the gravy until it starts to thicken up.  You can turn the heat off when it gets to your desired consistency.  The longer you leave it on, the thicker it will get, so just keep that in mind.  It's also important to make the gravy RIGHT before you serve it or it will start to gel up.

You can  make gravy like this for most anything.  This is also how I make gravy for mashed potatoes, but I just use straight chicken broth and some seasonings for it, same method though.  If you use milk instead of the chicken broth or other clear liquid, you will get a cream sauce that you can use for bases for things like mac n cheese or sausage gravy & biscuits, etc.