Pot Roast Recipe

I can no longer separate my childhood memories of this dish from when i started making it for my own family. It seems to have always been part of my life I do remember that it wasnt something my mom made for company (not fancy enough), but it did qualify for sunday dinner (it was still special). On sundays, the house would gradually become more and more fragrant with the perfume of the roast as it gently simmered away in the oven. I started making the pot roastwe all call it gabriellas pot roast, after my motherwhen my kids were little and i was working on my first cookbook. Not only was it unbelievably good, it was also beyond easy, exactly the sort of recipe a harried parent appreciates. Heres something funny: when my mom read the recipe in print, she insisted her version never contained tomatoes. We would go back and forth about this, and to this day im not sure i believe her Over the years, ive played with my version, cutting the amount of tomato to just a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, and moving it closer to what i believe her pot roast was. Sometimes my mother used the sauce from the roast to dress homemade spaghetti alla chitarra (a square-cut noodle from her native abruzzo, italy), then sliced and served the meat with the rest of the sauce spooned on top as a secondo, or second course. Other times, wed have the pot roast with roasted potatoes on the side, or bread for scooping up the sauce. Today, i serve it all these ways to my family and friends. My mom is very old now and has dementia, so whenever i make this recipe, im filled with gratitude for the many years of wonderful aromas that filled her kitchenand for the love of cooking she passed on to me. Domenica marchetti (@domenicacooks)author ofpreserving italyand six other books on italian cooking.