Food Friday - Cranberry Roast

Now this was a recipe that caught my eye just with the name. I saw the recipe for Cranberry Roast on A Year of Slow Cooking. This blog is on my blog reader and many recipes she posts I think sounds good, but when I saw this one I knew I had to make it.


Turned the heat to 375 on my little wonder cooker thing.


Added a little veggie oil, just to be able to brown the roast.


I bought a Top Round Roast, no particular reason except for it tends to be one of the cheaper roasts.


My roast was 2.76 pounds.


I chopped up half an onion. This was an experience because my sister, Rhoni, and her fiance, John, sent me and the boy knives for Christmas. (Yes, I am an early opener.) Any who, this was the first time I got to use them and I took a nice little chunk out of my left middle finger while cutting this onion.


First brown the roast in the oil. Turning so it gets browned on all sides. Toss in the onion and let them cook down for a few minutes.


First add the soy sauce, the recipe says 2tbsp, I will admit that I just eyed it. I let this cook for another 5 or so minutes to let the onions finish caramelizing and for them to soak up some of the soy sauce.


Next I did NOT just add the cranberry sauce, like the recipe says. The boy doesn't like fruity flavors with his meat, so I wanted to tone it down a bit. I mixed the cranberry sauce with one cup of hot water and mixed it together. Then I poured it into the pot. I covered it and let it cook for about 2.5 hours on 200 degrees.


With it we had roasted potatoes. The boy likes fingerling potatoes, so we tried these.


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.


I cut each potato into approximately fourths, some a little less or more depending on their size.


I then sprayed generously with Pam and sprinkled on some salt and pepper.


Baked for 30 minutes on 400, and 30 minutes on 300. They were lovely. I will admit that I didn't care for the purple ones, but I am not sure if that is because they actually tasted different or if it's just the fact that it's weird eating purple potatoes.




I forgot to take a picture of the roast and gravy when it was all done. Too focused on my finger, sorry.

Conclusion . . . at first the roast only hinted at the sweet cranberry flavor and I thought, well, I should have listened to the recipe and not diluted it. However, then I tasted the mixture left in the pot, which had thickened on it's own and didn't need to be reduced. Heavens, I would make that roast again just for that gravy. It was delicious and I will definitely make this again sometime!