Recipes

Dropping by on a day when there’s a nor-nor’easter blowing where I am–at a secure undisclosed location on Cape Ann, north of Boston…

…–and that makes it a perfect pot roast Sunday.

I do a lot of braising, and often get fairly elaborate–but we’ve just been eating our way through a chuck roast that is the simplest prep I know, and yet tastes just amazing.  So I thought I would share, both because it’s ridiculously easy (and probably well-known to the many excellent cooks/fressers amongst the jackaltariat) and as a kind of proof of life. I have several posts I want to write, but until the embarrassingly overdue MS is done, I don’t have the mental space or time to do more serious blogging. (Just got over the TB chapter, and am now confronting cholera…).  So think of this as a piece offering. (Hava noice piece o’ beef..)

The recipe came to my by way of this cookbook, which I highly recommend–except for their cooking times, which are waaaaay long.  They call it beef braised in Barbera wine, and it just works.

The recipe has been copied verbatim without credit at at least one place on the internet, so I’m just going to lay it out here in narrative form, and you can enjoy as you like (or search for it, and you’ll find it fast enough).

So here goes: take a 3 lb chuck roast and brown it well on all sides in a glop of olive oil. (The one I made this week was only two pounds, but no worries–I made the same amount of braising sauce, because one great use of the outcome is a shredded beef pasta sauce, and the liquid-meat ratio with a smaller piece works just fine.)  Cut up two carrots, a good sized onion, a stalk of celery and three large cloves of garlic.  No need to be dainty, for reasons that will become clear in a moment.  Fry the vegetables in the rendered beef fat/oil over medium-medium high heat for several minutes, until the onions just begin to color around the edges. I add the garlic after six or seven minutes, though the original recipe says dump it all in at once.

Then add a tablespoon of tomato paste (I am a bit more generous than that, usually–a heaping  TB), stir around for a moment or two, and dump in a whole bottle of robust red wine.  The cookbooks, as they are wont to do, specify an expensive bottle (cook with what you drink). I get a big everyday Trader Joe’s bottle and no one is the worse for wear.  Reduce it by about a third, then add a dash of ground cinnamon, some nutmeg, a bay leaf, and a teaspoon and a half of rosemary.

And with that, you’re basically done: return the meat to the pot, bring it to a simmer, cover it and shove it into a 350º oven, dropping the temperature to 250º after about twenty minutes.

The recipe as written says one should let it go for 3-4 hours, turning it over occasionally. This is nonsense.  I find a 2-3 lb roast will cook in about 1.5 hours to my preferred tenderness. YMMV.

Once it is to your liking, pull it out of the oven, put the meat on a plate and use a slotted spoon or a strainer to get the vegetables into a food processor.  Add just enough braising liquid to smooth the way, and grind it into a puree. Add it back to the rest of the liquid, stir it up–and you’re done.  I sometimes add a little bit of roux to the pot–I like butter–but not always.

It’s literally ten minutes of prep, maybe half an hour doing the stove top stuff, and then you have this unbelievably rich meal and even better leftovers.  Perfect for a day when the wind’s gusting to fifty and the spindrift is blowing for miles.

Anyway–we haven’t had that many food threads lately, so have at it. What’s your favorite antidote to a stormy day?  And beyond that, this thread is, as usual, as open as a big box store on Black Friday.

Image: Jean Siméon Chardin, Still life with a rib of beef, 1739.

Sunday Pot RoastPost + Comments (150)

I finished shoveling, the ducks are tucked away in the bathroom, and everyone else is snuggled down with blankets. It’s NEGATIVE 15 F outside. No wind now, but I guess the wind chill took us down to -55  earlier.  We may get up to a whopping 5 degrees by two-ish. Not our normal weather, that’s for sure.

But this has given me some extra time to do some more baking. These are in the oven right now:

Gluten/flour-free peanut butter cookies, recipe here.

We could not find a time for our annual Cookie Bake/Exchange this year, although we swore we would. We haven’t been able to do it since pre-pandemic. It’s always fun, lots of new recipes and different cookies to swap, but coordinating schedules can be tough. We’ll try again next year. I miss the fun of having everyone in the kitchen baking away. Here are some of the cookies from previous years. Nothing I haven’t shared before, but in case you needed some ideas:

show full post on front page

Recipe Thread: Holiday Gift IdeasPost + Comments (151)

I know I missed our weekly acts of kindness post – it was a wild and weird week. So to make it up, here’s some sweetness to get you through the afternoon.

Necessity is the mother of invention. @staceyabrams spills the secret of her mother’s "specialty dinner" on this week’s episode of my new podcast, Longer Tables…listen now wherever you get your podcasts!https://t.co/SFpPpiLY34 pic.twitter.com/x0U8trqveQ

— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) September 20, 2022

Marsh Farm, caen hill, Devizes: An education & wellbeing charity in Devizes UK supporting rescue animals &young people’s education.

Eli enjoying a beautiful sunrise #elithedonkey #wegotdonkeys #sunrise pic.twitter.com/cY7SPni1gL

— caenhillcc (@caenhillcc) September 24, 2022

Quish (Chris!) makes my days with his morning duck and goose rush hours, his emus and everyone else at the farm. He’s a good follow on youtube or twitter. Always a joyful video.

ghost cat sent this to me this morning and it made me smile. I can totally relate. If there were lost sheep wandering the trails, I would be the one they followed, knowing I would get them home.

From The Dodo:

Eleanor Scholz was traveling through France with her boyfriend and was out for a hike on her own. As she was making her way along the trail, she heard some sheep coming, which wasn’t unusual — but when they came into view, she realized something incredible was happening. The sheep were randomly following a woman who was out for a run.

“It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing,” Scholz told The Dodo. “At first, I thought maybe she was a shepherd, but she wasn’t dressed like any shepherd I’d ever seen, and it seemed unusual that a shepherd would be running. Then, I was concerned that she was being chased and that there might be some risk of being stampeded, so I got off of the trail and stepped behind a tree. When she stopped to talk with me, all of the sheep stopped and waited for her, and that’s when I realized that something truly whimsical was happening.”

(This was the only way I could embed the video so you can make it full-size to watch. )

https://t.co/66qSz5jSRW

— Miss T Has A New Book (Underway available now) (@TaMarasKitchen) September 24, 2022

As the pair chatted, the runner filled Scholz in. The sheep were apparently lost, and when they saw her run by, they decided to follow her. They needed a leader, and they chose her. The sheep were very unbothered by the stop along the trail, and some of them trotted over to say hi to Scholz.

“They all just stopped and waited, it was the funniest thing,” Scholz said. “Some of them immediately walked over to me, and I was worried they’d start following me instead, but they stood there patiently while she and I talked. They didn’t seem stressed or particularly winded.”

The sheep waited patiently while the runner told Scholz the story — and as soon as she started running again, they did too.  More at the link

It’s the time of year when folks go out to orchards; spend the day filling bags with apples, going on hay rides, running through corn and bale mazes, before finishing up with cider and cider donuts. In honor of that, I decided to try and make my own. Baked, not fried.

Finally, I made Apple Cider Donut Holes on a whim this week. They were tasty…well,  are tasty, it made 4 dozen and froze well so I can serve them to friends with coffee as needed. LOL  Recipe here. 

This is an open thread

Afternoon Open Thread: This and That and Apple Cider DonutsPost + Comments (76)