Coyote's Den

Preheat oven to 400 Degrees.

When I say a large onion, I mean it. It should be about the size of a softball. You may also use two smaller onions instead.

Cut half of the onion into thin slices, and the other half into large chunks. Se the chunks aside for now.

Cut the potatoes into bite-sized pieces or wedges. If you are adding carrots, use baby carrots or cut larger carrots into bite-sized pieces.

Lay the onion slices down flat in a baking dish that is large enough for all your meat and vegetables. What you want is to make a sort of "bed" out of the onions slices for the beef to lay on top of. Drizzle a small amount of olive oil over the onions.

Lightly drizzle olive oil, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce over both sides of the meat, and lay it down in the middle of the baking dish, on top of the onion slices.

Arrange the larger onion chunks in the baking dish, around the meat, so that they are pressed up against the sides of the roast. Add potatoes and carrots around the baking dish surrounding the meat and onions.

Spread the minced garlic on top of the beef so that the entire top of the roast is covered in a nice, solid layer.

Gently drizzle red wine over the meat (taking care not to wash off the garlic that you just put on top of the meat - go slowly), and over vegetables. Pour any remaining red wine into the bottom of the baking dish. Drizzle a small amount of olive oil over vegetables as well.

Sprinkle onion powder and garlic powder over potatoes, onions, and carrots. You may also sprinkle some of the onion powder over the meat.

Sprinkle a light dusting of black pepper and lemon pepper over everything, veggies and meat.

Sprinkle a small amount of sage and rosemary over meat and veggies (if you have it, use Herbs de Provence instead).

Add a heavy crusting of lemon pepper to the meat, layering it on top of the garlic.

What you want, here, is to have everything drenched nicely with the oil and wine, then to cover the veggies with a nice dusting of dried spices, and to cover the top of the meat with a thick crust of both fresh garlic and dried spices.

Cover dish with foil, and bake in 400-degree oven for 1-1/2 hours. Check every 30 minutes to ensure that liquid remains in the bottom of the pan. If necessary, add more liquid (either more wine or water as you prefer.) When nearly done, remove foil and bake uncovered for 15 minutes.

Substitutions
You may substitute small pearl onions or shallots for the onions around the sides of the beef, but it is important to have a real layer of onion underneath the beef. The bed of onions helps tenderize the meat, and becomes part of the savory broth that should form around it. Some recipes call for onion soup mix - which is silly when you can just add real onions (and not have your pot roast taste faintly of potato-chip dip!.

I have used Sangria instead of the red wine. It was scrumptious.

In the US, spices such as rosemary and sage are often added to meat and roasts. But if you can obtain it, there is an herb blend called Herb de Provence which is excellent, and contains these and other spices.

You may use other cooking oils or butter instead of olive oil. I prefer to use fresh virgin olive oil. I sometimes use a small amount of bacon grease when cooking beef, but I wouldn't suggest it with this wine-laden roast.