Momma’s Morsels: Swedish Pot Roast

One of my earliest memories is of waking up with the smells of Swedish Pot Roast cooking in my home. A wine-based scent spiked with nutmeg and cinnamon that wafted into my childhood dreams on days when I would I would awake happy knowing that the night's meal would be one of my favorites. One of my mother's infamous crock pot dishes, the meat would literally fall apart with barely a touch from the fork, and the slight ginger sweetness infused into the beef combined with hearty chunks of vegetable side dishes, made this one of those hearty meals that one grows up craving for life for cold nights with the pleasures of family.

My mother decided to make this for us the other night on occasion of my brother being in town to help me with our new joint project of gutting and rehabbing the cherished family home, and between tearing up old carpet pads and scrubbing wallpaper paste from the walls, we relished in the smells wafting in from the kitchen. Just like old times, the three of us piled our plates full, pouring a reduced ginger snap dressing over the tender meat, and ate together on the couch just like we used to do twenty years ago.

I woke up near midnight that night listening to the sounds of my daughter and her boyfriend raiding the fridge to heat up plates of their own and chuckled as my daughter's "oohs and ahhs" sounded exactly like my own...

Swedish Pot Roast

4 lbs. beef pot roast

2 tsp. nutmeg

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. ginger

2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

4 bay leaves

2 Tbls. shortening

2 onions, sliced

1 clove diced garlic

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup red wine

Combine nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, salt and pepper and rub into meat. Let sit in the rub in fridge for at least two hours. Heat cooker (crock pot) and add shortening. Brown meat on all sides on stove in pan. Add meat to crock pot and add onion, garlic, brown sugar dissolved in wine, and bay leaves. Close and cook on low all day. 

Serve with steamed carrots, potatoes, and a salad of romaine, walnut, and gorgonzola with simple balsamic/olive oil dressing.