Perfect Pot Roast and Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! So that James' mom didn't have to cook or clean, we hosted Mother's Day dinner at our house. I was excited about using more PW recipes (the salad, dessert and macaroni and cheese were provided by other Fields), though worried about having enough food. Abby, my sister-in-law, was surprised at my worry. "It's just our family, Kara."
"You realize that's 9 people, right??"

So instead of the 3-5 lbs. PW suggests, I bought about 7 pounds of meat and used both my crock pot and my mother-in-law's Pampered Chef stone to cook all the carrots, roast and onions. I cut the vegetables the night before, leaving them in the fridge in a zip-lock. I also salted the beef and readied the fresh herbs. This morning before church I seared the meat and browned the veggies, starting the timers on the slow-cookers as we left.

I made the mashed potatoes last night. James had the ingenious idea of using my apple peeler-corer-slicer to help peel the potatoes. While not perfect, it definitely helped speed the process. I didn't add the last bit of butter on top before baking, since they seemed plenty decadent to me without it. And while they took longer than 30 minutes to heat back up in the oven, Abby's macaroni and cheese wasn't ready yet, so they weren't the cause for the dinner delay.



Everyone agreed it was a delicious meal. The potatoes were so rich. Someone ventured to say it was the best pot roast ever... except for their mom's, of course.