Roast results

So that hunk of beef that I wrote about last week...it was awesome. Maybe a little long in the crock pot (I'd shoot for 7 hours on low next time rather than 8) and a hair salty (added a cup of beef broth before cooking to make sure it didn't dry out), but it was really great.

We had that with bread and salad Saturday, and then ate the leftover beef in tacos Sunday. It was excellent both times. Todd pointed out that we are getting pretty darn good at making tacos: we have a good method for chicken, and I would totally do the beef again this way.

A few observations:

• dilute the beef broth. Maybe 1/2 or 3/4 tsp of stuff to 1 cup of water. It was pretty salty.
• use red wine instead of soy sauce for a different direction.
• onions and shallots caramelized....yum.

I'm still thinking about those tacos. Wow.

Sausage mushroom soup

Todd and I have an arrangement about the food in our house. I do the grocery shopping and most of the cooking. He does a lot of the cleanup, and also contributes ideas to the weekly menu (I get totally bored and need inspiration, which he's quite good at).

So last week, he cracked open a cookbook he'd gotten me years ago as a gift (and from which one of our favorite dishes comes from; I'll share it in the summer) to come up with something for dinner.

The cookbook, by the way, is Food and Wine Magazine's Quick From Scratch Italian Cookbook. Having been raised in the Midwest, I still think, rather uncreatively, of spaghetti with marinara sauce topped with Kraft parmesan cheese as the quintessential Italian meal, and this cookbook pushes me far beyond that.

Eye of round roast, take 2. And work!

I made an ill-fated attempt at cooking a roast last fall. I'm not altogether sure why, given the fact that I all but get nauseous thinking about that roast, but I've decided to take another crack at it.

So I chopped up some onions and shallots and minced a whole lot of garlic and dumped that in a plastic freezer bag, along with the 2 1/4-pound roast.

Who ever went wrong with red meat, onions, garlic and shallots? Hopefully, I won't be the first.

Drawing from the marinade recipes I leafed through, I threw in some soy sauce, cracked black pepper and a hefty dose of kosher salt for good measure.

When it's ready to go in the crock pot (which is the one cooking method I'm always successful with) tomorrow, I'm going to bore a hole in the middle, and--get ready for it--stuff it with BACON.

I contend that there is nobody in the history of the universe who has ever made something that involves beef, bacon, garlic, shallots and onions taste bad. Especially when slow cooked, maybe in some red wine or something. IT'S JUST NOT POSSIBLE. (I hope.)

Above: does not look edible, but will hopefully be spectacular. I'll let you know how it goes.

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Cashew Chicken

Last summer, we had really good cashew chicken from Panda Express (which you are more than welcome to judge me for if you feel so compelled, but I like what I like. And you are probably a food snob). I decided that it couldn't possibly be too difficult to duplicate at home. Wrong-ish. The sauce copycat recipes I found online all sucked (hoisin sauce...disgusting) so I decided to just use some bottled sauce. And it turned out to be really, really good.

So here's my thoroughly modified version of Panda's cashew chicken:

Ingredients
1 pound of chicken breasts
2-3 red, yellow or orange bell peppers (I use a combination)
1 large white onion
3-4 stalks of celery
1 can of sliced water chestnuts
1 bunch of cilantro (my clump of leaves are about the size of both of my fists together, so kind of a lot)
4-6 green onion stalks (to taste)
1 cup (or less) of cashews or cashew pieces
1 clove garlic, minced

Sort of successful roast beast

At some point earlier this week, I got it in my head that I should make roast beef. It was always among the highlights of Sunday brunches growing up, and I couldn't think of any reason why I shouldn't make it. In retrospect, these:

• I have never been successful cooking big pieces of animal (chicken stands out in particular)
• I don't have the greatest track record of baked meals turning out well
• I'd never made a roast before
• Picking cruddy cuts of meat is a hidden talent of mine

all should have been good deterrents. Anyway, I picked up something labeled "round rump roast" at the grocery store, which looked very much like the pictures of what I'd planned on making. As is the case for some women when jeans shopping, the "rump" ruined everything. Little did I know I'd picked up a super-tough piece of meat.

Anyway, things turned out ok. Todd liked it a lot more than I did, which isn't saying much, since I found the combination of spices I used borderline nauseating. (Dried basil, dried oregano, garlic powder, kosher salt, cracked black pepper.) It must have been the basil/oregano. Other than that, it was kind of like chewing on beef-flavored shoe leather. Todd ate it on sandwiches.

It ended up sort of like the picture. Not really that bad, but not really that good, either. Lesson: get the right cut of meat.