Mushroom and Red Wine Pot Roast

My mom makes the BEST roast. She has a few signature dishes that no one will ever be able to replicate, and her roast tops that list. It's cooked in beer and some other ingredients and it is so stinking good. She makes it and their house smells like roast all day so that by dinnertime you're literally salivating in anticipation of this hunk of delicious meat. When I asked her for the recipe for this beer roast, she said she just throws a little bit of this and that in a pot and never measures. Ahh! I can't recreate that! So for me, making roast is thereby a little intimidating. I can't live up to Mom, but I did do a good job on my own with my own recipe. I didn't add beer and I didn't try to recreate her recipe because, let's face it, there's no way I could. But this one is delicious too!

Mushroom and Red Wine Pot Roast

2-4 pound beef bottom round roast
1 tablespoon butter
8 ounces sliced button mushrooms
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup red wine
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 clove of garlic, minced

For gravy:
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons water

Trim fat from the roast if thawed. Add the roast to a slow cooker and turn it on low while preparing the remaining ingredients. Melt butter in a skillet and add mushrooms. Cook until tender and most of the moisture has evaporated. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix remaining ingredients up to the minced garlic. Add in cooked mushrooms and combine. Pour this mixture over the roast. Cover and cook on low 7 to 9 hours. If you're using a frozen roast, cook on low 9-10 hours.

For the gravy: Remove the roast from the pot and slice. Keep it warm until serving. Turn slow cooker on high. In a small bowl, dissolve cornstarch in water. Stir into the liquid in the slow cooker. Cook on high for 15-20 minutes until the mixture has thickened. Serve gravy over the roast or on mashed potatoes. We ate our roast with roasted garlic mashed potatoes. Yum!