more thoughts re rump/pot roast

The canned french onion soup idea is a great one. I too don't like the
saltiness (etc) of the dried onion soup mixes on roasts.

Some more hints:

If you do not have a big enough pan in which to cook this roast covered, you can
use the small (see-through) cooking bags. The instructions that come with the
bags will tell you to put some flour inside the bag and shake the bag. This
supposedly keeps the bag from exploding while cooking. You then put all your
ingredients inside the bag, tie it shut with the provided tie, place the bag in
an oven-proof pan and bake your food according to the recipe temperature and
time.

When making pot roast, I like to include potatoes and carrots while cooking the
roast.

If you are cooking your roast in a covered dish, scrub your potatoes (or peel
them) and cut them in quarters. Add the quartered potatoes the last 45 minutes
to 1 hour of cooking. You could also add baby carrots at the same time.

(Note: Uncooked potatoes begin to turn brown/black shortly after you peel
and/or cut them. Either do this peeling and cutting just before adding to the
roast OR keep the cut/peeled potatoes in a bowl COVERED WITH COLD WATER to
prevent them from turning dark.

If you are cooking your roast in a tied cooking bag, I would cut the potatoes in
half and would use larger carrots cut in 2" to 3" pieces. The difference is
that when cooking inside the tied cooking bag, the veggies will be cooked a lot
longer than when added at the final stages of the "potted" roast. If you cut
the veggies too small, they seem to deterriorate/disappear while cooking. They
will, however, greatly add to the taste of the sauce even if they "disappear"
while cooling.

Another idea when cooking roast is to "dump" a can of chopped tomatoes in with
the roast (in addition to the soup). If you like spicy, add Italian spiced
chopped tomatoes.

Each time you cook a pot roast you will become more comfortable with this food.
It will become very easy for you. One of the most important points is to keep
it covered so it will not dry out (or add liquids if needed) and cook it a long,
long time. You can hardly overcook pot roast if you have enough liquid. It
just becomes more tender. If you undercook pot roast, it could be
somewhat tough, depending upon the cut of beef you use.

And, do not attempt to carve the roast until it has been out of the oven for 10
to 15 minutes. It needs to "set."

Sorry for being so long-winded but I have a couple more thoughts....

No two cooks make pot roast the same way. Most of us don't make it EXACTLY the
same way every time.

Have fun with this project. Let us know how this works for you.