Yep. Seems the older I get the more/larger the carrots get lol.

Yeah. The blended sauce is pretty thick once cooked. I usually eat the leftovers over rice.

I keep mine very simple (prep and flavor-wise). I tend to fail when I make it complicated.

I use a 4qt casserole and about 1qt of chicken stock

I don't really follow a hard recipe and sometimes modify it on the fly.

But here are the key points of my quick and dirty version:

• Preheat oven to 350F
• Cut meat to desired size and toss a tiny bit of evoo, salt, pepper and a tiny amount of flour
• Brown Meat on Med/high heat in bacon fat (I use a stainless steel sauté pan), then move meat in an even layer to the oven vessel of your choice.
• Wash, peel (optional), chop potatoes and carrots to desired sizes and layer over meat
• Throw a whole roughly chopped onion, a small container of mushrooms, a whole bulb of (peeled) garlic, and a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste into the vitamix (blender) with one carton of your favorite chicken stock/broth and blend the shit out of it. (You can add lots of other things to this to your own taste)
• Use that mixture to deglaze the pan from the browning stage and bring it up to a simmer.
• Pour that mixture over the other ingredients, cover an put in the oven.
• Cook for about 2 hours then give it a big stir, and add more salt & pepper as needed
• Cook for about 1 more hour, or until meat is fork tender
• Try not to burn your mouth eating it.

Note: I don't like the the texture of cooked mushrooms and onions, that's why I blend them. Plus they make the final broth liquid amazing, but feel free to just chop that stuff up directly over your veg. The rest would stay the same.