Okay, so I think in my post for Ian’s birthday festivities, I mentioned that we made a recipe and I was going to share it. We’ve made it several times since but I kept forgetting to take a picture. I finally took a picture this week! Please don’t judge the recipe by the photo though…I just lack the time and energy to come up with a “prettier” shot.

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My mother makes a meal that we call “Tomato Roast” (for lack of a better name). It’s one of those things that she makes all the time and we all love. It’s definitely a family favorite.

Not too long ago, Mike tried a new recipe and the end result reminded me of my mom’s Tomato Roast. We played around a bit until we came up with the combo below which is a very close substitution to my mom’s recipe. The best part is, we use the crockpot which is both easy AND convenient. Even more so when you consider that my mom makes hers using a pressure cooker and we don’t have one. 🙂

I’ve served this with roasted garlic potatoes, mashed potatoes, and egg noodles. It’s kind of similar to a pot roast.

(Fortunately/unfortunately, this is one of those recipes that you just kind of eye ball and doesn’t have exact measurements. LOL)

TOMATO ROAST
INGREDIENTS:
Top Round beef – we make 2lbs usually
Whole tomatoes – a couple of cans
Celery – a couple of stalks, cut in bite-sized pieces
Salt and pepper – to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:
Throw everything (including the raw meat) in the crockpot on low for 8 hours or high for 4-6 hours. Serve when done.

Can’t get easier than that, right? The roast will literally fall apart when you pull it out of the broth (as you can see in the picture above).

Comments-
#1. We made a TON of meat (4-5lbs, two crockpots) for Ian’s birthday because we had a full house. We ate a good portion of the meat but had a lot of broth (and tomatoes & celery) left over. I used that the next day, along with some leftover meat, as the base to a homemade vegetable beef soup. It came out AWESOME. Just something to consider when you’re making this…gotta love cooking 1 time and making 2 different meals!

#2. This last time we made the roast, I used the liquid from the crockpot to make some egg noodles (instead of boiling the noodles in water). I probably could have used even more liquid but they were really good. (Next time, if I’m planning to make noodles, I’ll make sure to throw in an extra can of whole tomatoes at the start.) I think the noodles were even better as leftovers the next day when the flavor of the broth had completely soaked in. Ian wouldn’t try them (as usual) but Matthew loved them!

Edited to add: Mom told me I forgot to add the onions to the recipe. Honestly, we may have added onions when we made it for Ian’s birthday but we haven’t since. So, add onions if you want! 🙂