Best chuck roast EVER

[beautifulduckweed]

benefitz and I created Yet Another Amazing Meal together last Sunday. We threw together a chuck roast, roasted acorn squash with lashings of butter and brown sugar, and vegetables (carrots, celery, onion, mushrooms, garlic) cooked in pan drippings and dill.

The vegetables were tasty, but a touch overcooked. Note to self: Use dill more often. But the real stand-out was the chuck roast. Seriously, you guys: SO. GOOD. Ben and I couldn't stop making stupid happy noises (most of them starting with "OM" and ending with "NOM NOM NOM") as we ate it. Here's what we did:

1. Buy a 3-lb. chuck roast. The roast we got was about 2, 2-1/2" thick. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. Cut 1/2" deep slits on top of the meat. I cut about 6 or 7 slits, each about 2 inches long.
3. Stuff each slit full of thinly-sliced garlic, thinly-sliced shallots, thyme and rosemary. And I mean just jam that shit in there (the way I did your mom).
4. And this last step is key: Take several slices of lean thick-cut bacon (we ended up using four) and wrap around the top of the roast. If you have twine, use it. Toothpicks and skewers would work, too, but really, just laying the bacon on top is fine, because Ben and I, we had squat.
5. Roast at 450° for 10 minutes, then turn down to 350 and roast for an hour more for rare, longer if you don't want your meat to moo at you when you cut into it. Take bacon off, eat while letting meat rest and also while carving the meat. Try not to pass out from the sheer glory that is bacon that's been roasted on top of beef and in close proximity to aromatics.