Slow Roasted Beef

In thinking what I would make for dinner tonight, I rummaged once again through the freezer, and a couple of days ago I discovered the roast I had put away. I will be slow roasting this and will also feature roasted potatoes, carrots and parsnips to accompany this dish. Slow roasting of the meat will keep the “pink” color of the meat from side to side, and any leftovers will make great roast beef sandwiches. So let’s head off to the kitchen!

Ingredients
1 – 3 1/2# beef roast
Fresh ground salt and pepper
1 tsp each of rosemary, thyme and basil
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
Extra virgin olive oil
2 Yukon gold potatoes
A good handful of baby carrots
2 medium sized parsnips

Allow four hours for this to cook. Take the roast out of the refrigerator and let it warm up. If there is a nice layer of fat on the meat, score it.

Score the fat

While it is warming up rub with the fresh ground salt and pepper. Using a mortar and pestle, crush the herbs one at a time. Then combine in a bowl to blend evenly. Rub this on all sides of the roast. Slice the garlic into thin slices, and cut into the meat and insert the slices of garlic. Next using a slight bit of olive oil, rub this over the meat.

Rubbed with herbs and oil

Once the roast has sat out for about an hour or so, turn the heat up on your oven to 200 degrees. While this is heating up, get your pan ready, and include a roasting rack to set the roast on. When the oven is ready, place this in the oven on the 2nd rack from the bottom. Set the timer for four hours. Do not open the oven!

About an hour and a half before the roast is done get your vegetables ready. Although I really love veges cooked around the meat, for this recipe, you will have to cook these separately. I cut the potatoes into chunks, left the already peeled baby carrots whole, and the peeled the parsnips, and cut those into chunks too. Then I used about 1 tsp of rosemary, and parsley, a couple of dashes of onion powder, and 3 twists on the salt and pepper grinders. Then I used about 2 TBS of extra virgin olive oil. Using my hands I mixed it up.

Potatoes, carrots and parsnips

Set these aside. There are a couple of steps that you will need to do with the roast, so at the 50 minutes before the timer goes off, preheat the oven for the vegetables to 375 degrees. Place those in the oven. Stir these periodically during roasting.

Roasting vegetables

When the timer goes off for the meat, remove it from the oven and cover it with foil.

Before hitting it with high heat

Then turn the oven up to 500 degrees. When the oven is hot, place the roast back into the oven and cook for 5 minutes. Check the internal temperature at this point. I cooked this to medium rare and pulled this out of the oven when the temperature hit 132 degrees. Remove from the oven and cover with foil. The temperature will go up as the meat rests.

Let the roast sit

After about 10 minutes the veges should be done, and the meat ready to carve.

Slice up the meat - see the garlic?

Plate it up with your veges, and use some of the juices to pour over the meat.

Dinner is served!

Stay tuned as I will be fixing up Steve’s Baked Tilapia tomorrow!

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Beef Stew

Normally I make beef stew in the crock pot. Yesterday with the snow event and no power for most of the day I had to prepare this on the stove top. Nothing is better than a stew on a very cold day, and our bones were definitely warmed by this dish!

Ingredients
1 1/2# stew meat
flour
garlic powder
salt and pepper
Hungarian paprika
1 onion
extra virgin olive oil
64 oz. beef broth
1 cup good red wine, I used Zinfandel from Storey Winery
3 potatoes
handful of prepared baby carrots
3/4 cup of frozen peas
1/4 # fresh green beans
2 bay leaves
1 TBS savory
1 TBS coriander
2 TBS rosemary
2 TBS parsley

Cut up the meat into bite size chunks…sorry the photo is poor… 😦

Meat is cut up and ready to use

Then take the flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper and the paprika and add to a zip lock bag. Put the meat in and shake it vigorously. Set aside. Next take the onion and chop coarsely. Add this and 3 good glugs of olive oil to your stew pot. Turn on the heat, add the onions. Cook down for about 3 minutes and then grab the pieces of beef out of the bag. Do not worry about excess flour as you grab the meat as it will thicken the stew. But do not add in the rest of the flour from the bag. Brown the meat. While this is browning, peel the potatoes and cut into bite size chunks. Trim up the green beans.

The vegetables are ready to go

When the meat is brown add the broth and the wine. Then add your vegetables. Next add the herbs.

Everything is added

Bring this up to a boil, and then cover, turning the heat down to low. Check your stew often to ensure that it does not stick to the bottom of the stew pot. Cook on low for about 2 hours, and then serve.

Dinner is served!

Don’t forget to have a glass of the wine that you used in the stew!

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