Pot Roast 1

My new pattern on weekends is to do very little school work and instead to experiment with cooking. During the work week, I am often too busy to try new recipes or recipes that take some time--I just want to make something that is fast and easy. Last weekend, I read this book that Brian got for Christmas--it is a cooking textbook for chef's school, and it is really detailed. I got some good ideas from it and made a hearty stewed beef and gravy dish. This weekend, I plan on taking some of the lessons I learned last weekend and making up a pot roast recipe. The root of many of the recipes in this book is a maripoix (sp?), which is cooking chopped onions, celery, carrots, and a little oil over medium-low heat for a long time (30-45 minutes) so that they get soft and brown and the bottom of the pan gets nice and brown too (need a real metal pan, not one with non-stick coating). Then you add some tomato paste and brown it all some more. It really brings out a lot of sweet flavors from the vegis and tomatoes. Once everything is properly browned, you can start adding liquid (either wine, broth, water, tomato juice, etc). The liquid picks up all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan and makes a very flavorful sauce. So anyway, I'm going to use this maripoix as the base of my pot roast recipe. It should be yummy. I will update later with the results.