Day 26, Recipe 26: Sunday Roast Dinner

One of my favorite memories of being a kid, is sunday dinners. What is served at these dinners always varies, but it's always delicious- like a mini-holiday feast! The bf & I love to carry on this tradition, whether its pork tenderloin, roasted chicken or a beef roast, we'll prepare all the fixings & enjoy a great meal as we wind down from the weekend. I'm fortunate that he's the meat & potatoes kind of guy, because before he came along, I couldn't cook a cut of beef if my life depended on it- seriously, runs in the genes or something.

We found a cute little 2 lb sirlion tip roast at Metro yesterday for $10 (which is a really, really good price- we've paid upwards of $25 for our roasts before). It was the perfect size for us & we even had leftovers. Here's my marinade recipe, followed by my gravy sauce recipe.


2 lb               Beef roast (Sirlion Tip or other lean cut)
1 T               olive oil
1/4 C            red wine
2 T              Worcestershire sauce
1 T              montreal steak spice
5                 cloves of garlic, minced
1                 small onion, minced

Prepare the marinade in a small bowl (all items excluding the roast). Place roast into a shallow pan (you can also place it on top of a rack, if you have one). Drizzle the marinade over top of roast, brushing all sides. Place into fridge and allow to sit for 2 hours.
Remove roast from fridge and preheat oven to 325 degrees F- using a low heat is ideal for this cut of beef. We also prefer our roasts medium-rare so we can afford to cook at this low temperature and not have to wait for hours to eat.
Place roast into the oven & cook for approximately 30 minutes per pound. If you have a meat thermometer, it should read about 140 degrees for medium-rare. We don't, so we just eye it out.
After roast is cooked to desired doneness, allow to sit on a cutting board for 15-20 minutes. Then thinly slice & serve with prepared gravy, horseradish, etc.

Now, take the drippings from your roast pan and make some gravy! It's sooooo much better then using packaged gravy if you do it right. The more spices you use on your roast, the more flavorful the drippings will be resulting in a more rich gravy. I nailed it first try and I'll never look back to that little brown package. A little shinfo on making gravy- it's important to know how much fat/drippings you have. If you like a thick gravy, the ratio should be 1:1 for drippings:flour.

1 T                roasting pan drippings
1 T                flour
1/2 C             beef broth/chicken broth
1/4 C             red or white wine (use red for beef & pork, white for chicken)

If you have company or you just want a ton of gravy and you don't have enough fat, melt down some butter in it's place.
Start with the drippings in a pan over medium heat. Stir in flour until it is well mixed & begins to slightly bubble. Add 1/4 cup of wine in slowly, stirring to ensure all the bits from the bottom are mixed in. Now add broth 1/4 cup at a time, stirring well. As the gravy begins to thicken, reduce heat to low & simmer for about 10 minutes. The result? A thick, tasty homemade gravy!

day 4, recipe 4; Light & Healthy Pizza, hmm.

My boyfriend refers to this as "greek-za". It was delicious, but hardly what I'd classify easy. Between struggling to improvise the dough recipe to utilize the tools I had handy, to finding under-risen dough at the half way mark and under cooked pizza at the end of the recommended cooking time, I was more then discouraged. In the end, this pizza was a melody of crispy crust, garlic and feta. I'd make it again, but on a time crunch I can almost guarantee I'd find myself rummaging through the takeout flyers for a quick fix.

1 1/2 C            fresh broccoli
1/2                  red onion
1/4 C               kalamata olives, pitted, chopped into pieces
5 cloves           garlic
1 can               diced tomatoes
1/4 C               feta cheese, crumbles
                       pizza dough
1 T+3t             olive oil

Prep work:
1 1/2 C            fresh broccoli, chopped into bite size pieces
1/2                  red onion, chopped
                      vegetable oil spray
Coating:
3 t                   olive oil
2 cloves           fresh garlic, minced
Mix together in a bowl, set aside.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with vegetable oil spray. Spread broccoli and onion onto sheet and coat in spray once more; Bake for 11 minutes. Toss with olive oil coating and set aside.

*This is a crucial step in ensuring you don't end up with soggy pizza- vegetables leak liquid when cooked so baking them for a short while is very important.

Increase oven temperature to 500 degrees F. Spread pizza dough onto a pan- I used a rectangular, shallow pan to make a slab pizza. I sprinkled the bottom of the pan with flour before spreading the dough and brushed 1 tablespoon of olive oil before placing into oven. When dough is evenly pressed onto the pan, put into oven and bake for 5 minutes.

Sauce:
1 can               diced tomatoes, drained
3 cloves           garlic, minced
                       salt & pepper, to taste

In a handheld food processor, mix together tomatoes, garlic, salt & pepper.

Spread 1/2 sauce mixture over pre-baked pizza dough. Sprinkle the broccoli and onions over top. Add olives and feta cheese. Return to 500 degree oven and bake for 12 minutes.

The original recipe called for this to bake for 5-8 minutes. Talk about disappointment- it wasn't even close to done. The recipe boasts of a crispy crust- which indeed it did have after cooking for 12 minutes. If you were timing this pizza around a side dish- such as our delicious buffalo style chicken wings- you'd have been most disappointed that the timing was off.
Interesting experience, overall. One day, I'm sure I'll be spinning dough over my head and laughing at folks ordering from Pizza Nova for a "true italian experience"...for now, however- I won't scoff at my own desire to pick up the phone for a quick fix.
Delicious? Definitely!
Healthy? Agreed!
Worth the effort? Debatable.

No wonder the delivery guy bashfully looks away when he shows up with your soggy Veggie Supreme.