Mudder's Best Pot Roast!

This pot roast pwns. Josh loves it, everyone I've made it for loves it, and best of all, it's more or less fool proof. All you need is:

Tools:
A casserole dish and lid (large enough to fit your roast) or large dutch oven.
A large skillet for browning/making gravy

Foods:
A roast (mine was about 1.5 kilos, but I've made smaller and larger roasts with similar results)
1/2 cup flour
3-4 tbs hot Hungarian Paprika
salt and pepper
3 tbs oil
A package of bacon
1 cup red wine
1 pint mushrooms, quartered
1 large onion, diced
4+ cloves of garlic (to taste, really), pressed
A few sprigs fresh thyme

Preheat oven to 325 degrees, and begin heating your skillet with oil to medium-high heat. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl mix together flour, paprika, salt and pepper. Pat dry your roast with paper towel, and dredge it in flour. Shake off excess flour and reserve for later. Brown your roast in the hot skillet. To brown, make sure your pan is hot, and place the roast on the pan and just leave it. Don't touch it until you're read to turn sides, otherwise you'll risk dislodging the delicious browned parts on the outside! Give each side a couple of minutes. You'll want the whole roast to look dark brown and crispy. This part should also smell amazing. While you're browning you can arrange the bacon in your pan, making two intersecting layers that your roast can rest on. Essentially, you want to wrap the whole roast in bacon. Usually I do two layers of bacon so that I can wrap around the entire roast. Toss your mushrooms, onions, and garlic around the roast and pout in the wine. Place thyme on top. It should look like this:

Place entire roast in the oven for 2-3 hours. I usually check the roast after about an hour. You should see significantly more fluid in the pan at this point, like so:

That fluid is dissolved connective tissue from the roast. The results will be tender, succulent, pull-apart-with-you-fork meat. We usually serve it with mashed potatoes, yorkshire pudding, and either salad or steamed vegetables. Now to make gravy is quite simple. You should give yourself about 10 minutes before slicing into any cooked meat (to prevent steam escaping and drying it out) which is ample time to whip up a gravy. It's really quite simple: If making your roast in a dutch oven, use a slotted spoon to remove mushrooms, bacon and any other solids from the fluid. Bring to a simmer, and ladle out about a 1/4 cup of fluid into a measuring cup. Add 1-2 tbs of reserved flour from browning, and whisk until smooth. Add this mix to the fluid and whisk. Allow to simmer on low, until desired thickness is achieved. Season as desired.

Enjoy with beautiful presentation and good friends! Served here with garlic and green onion mashed potatoes, and lemon broiled asparagus.  Also, a big thanks to our pal Joe Campbell for providing beautiful photos and company for this dish!