Sunday Dinner Series Part III: Where's the Beef?

Blah blah work married life busy blah.  Back to the food in general, and the Sunday Dinner Series in particular!

Unseasonably warm weather aside, it's still winter here in Manitoba.  For me, that means finding the heartiest food possible and tucking in.  Warming from the inside out, if you will.  I can only fathom how the voyageurs survived the cold season all those years ago... though I'm pretty sure pot roast (or something like it) would've come into play.

He Ho!

"Roast beef dinner" is definitely a Honeybee family tradition.  In recent years, however, I've come to realize that while it does involve roasted beef, it doesn't necessarily fit most people's idea of "roast beef".  This is really more a pot roast, with lots and lots of veggies.

I had been perusing my new favourite cooking tome, and found not one, but TWO recipes for "perfect pot roast" (don't ask me how that works... how can they BOTH be perfect?  Meh).  At first, I thought I would follow the recipe exactly, especially since there was never really a recipe for Mom's roast.  But about halfway through, her voice started creeping into my head.  "What, no onion soup mix?  Are you really only going to use a half cup of wine?  What do you mean, no roasted carrots on the side?!"  Telepathic-mom was absolutely right.  What was I doing??  Why mess with what I know I like??  So, I started ignoring the book (Hubs would be proud) and started doing my own thing.  I've done it again since the first "hybrid recipe" attempt, with good results.  If you want to try it out for yourself, have a look here:

Lil's Sunday Pot Roast

Sort of adapted from The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV
Show Cookbook... for the first bit, at least.

Serves four, with leftovers

• 1 boneless beef roast (like a chuck-eye roast), about 3-5 lb*
• ~2 Tbsp canola oil
• Salt & pepper
• 1 small white onion, chopped medium
• 2 ribs celery, chopped medium
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped medium
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 bottle of red wine (some for cooking, some for drinking... so pick a decent one!)
• 1/2 package onion soup mix
• 1 large red onion, peeled, trimmed and cut into large chunks
• 4-6 red potatoes (depending on size), scrubbed and cut into large chunks
• 1 head of garlic, peeled
• 3-4 carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into large chunks
• Cornstarch (for gravy thickening)

*I didn't realize that I bought a bone-in roast.  So, at about 8 am on a Sunday, I gave myself a crash-course in deboning.  It was messy.  Hence the butcher twine... better now!  My apologies to any vegetarian readers... but in all honesty, having to deal with that aspect of food prep made me consider a plant-based diet myself!

1. Preheat the oven to 300ºF.
2. In a Dutch oven or other oven-safe pot, heat the oil over high heat until shimmering.
3. Prep your roast.  If it's a sort of large ungainly piece of meat, use butcher's twine to tie it up into a nice uniform loaf shape.  Using paper towels, pat it dry.  Season liberally with salt and pepper.
4. Sear the roast on all sides in the hot pot (I like using my Le Creuset for this, since it can also go in the oven.  Less dishes, yay!)  Once well browned on all sides, remove the roast to a plate.  Turn the heat down to medium.
5. Toss the white onion, celery, and medium-chopped carrot into the roast pot.  Cook until the veggies soften and start to brown.  Add the garlic and sugar; cook and stir for about 30 seconds until fragrant.  Add the thyme.
6. Pour in a generous amount of red wine to deglaze; be sure to scrape up all the delicious brown bits on the bottom of the pot (I honestly just free-pour.  It's probably about a cup to a cup and a half of wine that I use.  FLAVOUR.)
7. Add the roast (and any juices it's leaked) back to the pot.  Sprinkle the 1/2 package of onion soup mix over it.  Add enough water to the pot to bring the liquid halfway up the roast.
8. Bring the roast + liquid up to a simmer.  Fit the lid tightly over the roast (I usually put a sheet of foil in there for a good seal).  Put in the oven.
9. Bake for 2-2 1/2 hours, turning the roast over every 1/2 hour.
10. At the 2-2 1/2 hour mark, add the veggies (potato, sweet potato, whole garlic cloves, red onion).  If things look a bit dry, add more wine.
11. Bake for another hour or so, until the veggies and meat are fully tender (poke them with a fork- if the fork slides in and out easily, you're golden).
12. Take the roast out and let it sit on a carving board, tented under the foil you used earlier, until you're done the gravy.
13. With a slotted spoon, remove all the veggies from the pot to a serving bowl.  Try to leave behind as much juice as possible.
14. If there are still a lot of "chunks" in the gravy, take an immersion blender and whiz it up a bit.  On the stovetop, put the pot on medium heat and simmer the gravy down until it thickens and reduces somewhat.  Scoop out some of the hot proto-gravy with a ladle into a mug.  Add a tablespoon or so of cornstarch and whisk well.  Add back to the whole pot of gravy (this is how you can avoid getting lumps).  Repeat until desired consistency of gravy is reached!
15. Carve your roast.  I'm not going to lie, I can never get nice "slices" like my Dad does.  So we just sort of end up with large tender meat chunks.  Nobody complains.
16. Serve the roasted veg and beef with the gravy.  A loaf of fresh bread is especially nice here, to spread the roasted whole garlic cloves on like butter.  BUTTER, I tell you.

Starting the sear.

Almost done searing... look at all that brown-bit flavour on the bottom!

The bowl of delicious vegetables, pre-cooking.  Looks so pretty with all those vibrant colours...

Meat chunks!

Roast veg.  Not the prettiest bowl, but oh man, the flavours in here are not to be believed.

Dinner with Hubs (he's wearing his 'Polar bear in a snowstorm' Winnipeg shirt!).  Observe the fresh-baked bread, with roasted garlic clove spread.  It's a whole delicious meal, in one pot!  Make sure you get that red wine on the table, too.

So overall, the pot roast doesn't look like anything special.  It's certainly not haute cuisine.  Presentation's not great.  But let me tell you, this was the ONLY way to finish off a day of skating on the trails at The Forks.  It was also a great dinner to share with Deb, which gave me an excuse to attempt challah for the first time (more on that another day!)

Digging through the archives and continuing to cook (and photograph) up a storm,
-Honeybee

Sunday Dinner Series

Ahh, the adjustment to married life continues.  Not that it's a big adjustment, mind you, but it does give me an excuse to cook up some dinners that take a little extra time, thought, and love.  This was a rare occurrence when I was living alone, but now that Hubs is here, it seems appropriate to lay the groundwork for a well-loved tradition: Sunday dinner.

Sundays were very important days in my house growing up.  Of course, the day would start bright and early with a Roman Catholic service.  Once we were old enough to not throw hissy fits in the store, this would be immediately followed by grocery shopping, since the large grocery store was across the street from our church.  I have some great memories of food shopping with the family, which eventually turned into waving hello from behind the deli counter as I rushed to work at the store immediately following mass.

Just had to include a shout-out to St. Paul's, even though my old elementary school next door is now a pharmacy...

It was a rare Sunday where we didn't make a special dinner (or "lupper", as my dad usually calls it, since we typically ate around 2-3 pm).  Nonna would often be invited over to dine with us as well.  Things like pot roasts with root vegetables, homemade egg-based pasta or gnocchi with meatballs and long-simmered sauce, beef stew, oven-roasted chicken pieces in some sort of delicious sauce, or barbecued ribs or pork loin in the summer would be the typical fare.  It wasn't just the food that was important, though... it was the sense of togetherness and family.

So, now that I've officially started our own little family, I'm finding that I'm gravitating towards a similar tradition in our one-bedroom apartment.  Our dear friend/neighbor Deb often fills the role of Nonna, coming over to share with us and visit.  The past few weeks, I've really enjoyed my Sunday creations... enter the Sunday Dinner Series on A Weekend, In Food!

Part I: Can't Beet This!

Blame my father for my terrible puns.  I'm just a product of my environment.

Manitoba.  Beets.  They're kind of a "thing" here.  I've seen them on all sorts of upscale restaurant menus: in hummus, on burgers, etc.  I honestly didn't really grow up eating them.  I do remember trying the pickled variety at one point, but they weren't a staple.  I saw some lovely local bunches at the market, and couldn't resist trying them.  I'd heard that they became very sweet when roasted, so I followed this recipe from Allrecipes.com to give it a shot. 

"Breadmaker bread", on the other hand, WAS a staple for Sunday dinners.  I can distinctly remember filling up the machine's "pail" with all the necessary ingredients and lugging it downstairs.  Magically, some hours later, bread emerged.  To a 12-year-old, this is pretty amazing.  My grandmother always marveled at how much we loved it, hot from the appliance, commenting, "you seem to like it so much that you don't even put butter on it!"  True enough.  The fresh flavour was all we needed.  I bought a breadmaker from a yard sale for a bank-breaking five dollars... and produced this lovely half-white, half-whole-wheat loaf to accompany our dinner.  I think the recipe produced a bit too much dough for my machine, though, as you can see by the "mushroom top" loaf that resulted.  I didn't have any bread flour, so I used 2 cups of all-purpose and 1 cup of whole wheat flour in this (again, Allrecipes.com) recipe.  Good results overall, and very simple to pull off.

Now what to do for the main?  Pork tenderloin has become a pretty frequent Sunday dinner star.  Now, I love my father to the very depths of my heart.  Really.  But his PTs are frequently seasoned with his special "rub"... which I'm convinced consists of a generous dumping of every spice and herb in the rack.  Even those that might not...err... "play nicely" together on the palate.  I will admit, though, that it forms a good, functional crust on the meat when he grills it on the barbecue.  Being 'cue-less, and preferring time-honoured combinations like oregano, garlic, and olive oil on my pork, I followed this recipe to make both roasted potatoes and a Mediterranean-inspired oven roasted pork tenderloin, with delicious results.  Three-for-three for Allrecipes.com!  It's becoming a good friend for hearty, down-home flavour ideas.

Mmm, pork.  A little bit pink in the middle, just the way I like it... which is PERFECTLY SAFE by today's swine-rearing standards.

Wondering what I did with the roasted beets?  I tossed them with mixed greens and feta, then drizzled with an olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper vinaigrette.  Hello salad course!!

A delicious plate overall.

I'm really hoping that nice Sunday dinners become a tradition in our family, especially as it expands (NOT YET!) with children.  Even though our lives aren't super-hectic at the moment, it's still nice to set aside time to sit down and really enjoy a nice, well-prepared meal that takes a bit more effort than our standard weeknight stir-frys and pastas.  Stay tuned for further installations of the Sunday Dinner Series, and let me know how I'm doing!!

Part professional, part aspiring household/gastronomic goddess, I remain,
-Honeybee

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig...

Right off the bat, no.  I did not purchase any pork products, fat or otherwise, during my trip on Saturday to the St. Norbert farmer's market.  The title's from a little nursery rhyme that springs to mind, always sung in my mother's enthusiastic and emphatic alto, anytime I think of going to a market.  Ah, sweet childhood memories...

Let's get to what I DID buy at the market.  This was only my second time going; I went with Snickers and her owners two weeks prior.  I fell in love immediately.  It's not the biggest outdoor market I've seen, but what it lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality.  It's all here: raw veggies, meats and fish, prepared snacks and baked goods, freshly-squeezed lemonade, fresh-cut and potted flowers, and arts and crafts: all local, and all tried, tested and true.

It may not look like much (blame the weather), but from what I've learned this market is serious business.  New vendors have to successfully debut at the Wednesday market to be considered for a coveted Saturday booth.  Nice to know that you're getting the best of the best when you go!

This is Charles, owner of Scott's Hill Apiary.  We met him during our last visit, when we stopped to listen to the protein-packed benefits of adding bee pollen to yogurt or oatmeal for a boost after a long workout.  Charles is full of great info (a quick Google search tells me he's a retired teacher; makes sense!), and I love that he has a flipbook of pictures to help explain the honey- and pollen-making processes to anyone who asks.  Flipbook users unite!!  He also has this spiffy little honey tasting bar, where he'll let you sample the different honey flavours (made by bees who pollinate different flowers/plants, not by adding artificial flavours afterwards) and compare them.  I bought the nice, dark-coloured buckwheat honey last time.  It was fantastic; not too sweet, sort of a cross between honey and molasses.  I used to make peanut butter and molasses sandwiches as a kid, so this definitely appealed.  This time around, I went for the basswood... though admittedly, I have the same issues as with wine when it comes to describing the flavour of that honey.  Charles kindly suggested that the difference I might be tasting could be due to lemon-lime notes; I had to agree.  Sold!

On to meats.  I was on the hunt for bison, which, I've been told, is the proper term for buffalo.  I'm not to say buffalo.  Ever.  This is a pretty big deal in Manitoba, it would seem... heck, the provincial symbol features one of these furry ruminants.  That fact, though, makes it seem a bit weird to be eating them... I mean, I never chowed down on any trilliums while back home.  My illustrious little brother, who is off to culinary school in a couple of weeks (I'm not jealous, really...), informed me that bison has much less fat than beef, and is considered superior in several ways.  I have to admit, it's pretty darn tasty.  While I wasn't up for the prehistoric, Fred Flintstone-esque roast that the kind shopkeeper displayed, I did manage to bargain my way into buying six bison burgers.  Maybe I'll grill one up tonight... mmm.

I think the sign says it all.  Beautiful vegetables, naturally grown, local, and fresh.  Done and done.  I've never seen such gorgeous onions in all my born days.  I actually caught myself daydreaming about them after the first visit to the market... definitely a sign that I needed to invest in some.  I'm so used to those plastic mesh bags at the grocery store, holding dry, dull-looking bulbs with crackling papery skins... this is so much better.

Stand in awe.

The ladies at the Wiens Farm booth were super-nice.  They also had some fantastic-looking yellow and green zucchini; sold.  I asked their permission to take photos, and that led to a little rundown of who I was, why the heck I moved to MB, and of course the blog.  One of the gals there, Terrilynn (sorry if I butchered the spelling!), was even thoughtful enough to chase me down after I'd left the booth to let me know about a bus/bike tour of the urban gardens in the city.  Oh, and she welcomed me to Manitoba.  Everyone does that, it totally gives me warm fuzzies!

My invite, courtesy of Terrilynn, to this awesome-sounding garden community tour.  I wish I could go... a combination of packing for the weekend and lacking a bike/bus pass prevents me.  Maybe next time; I love the idea of urban gardens.

I'm getting hungry at this point in the afternoon.  Not to worry; I'll go hit up the perogie booth.  Last time, I feasted on three generous-sized perogies; two were cheddar, onion and bacon-filled, while the third was sweeter and full of Saskatoon berries (go to Wikipedia if you've never heard of 'em, they're delish.  Kind of like a blueberry). This time around, I was a little bummed to find out that the ladies were only offering cottage cheese perogies.  I only VERY recently found out that I don't completely hate cottage cheese, so I was a little apprehensive.  I needed a fix, though... they were just so fabulous last time.  Soft, pillowy, tender dough, steamed lightly, not too mushy, with flavour-packed filling and some sort of dairy-based "gravy" that I shall herein refer to as "creamy crack".  Totally addictive.

The cottage cheese perogies didn't disappoint.  And just look at how they're swimming in the "creamy crack" gravy... I'm going to have to find out what that's made of.  I've never had any sort of gravy on perogies before, but this opened my eyes.

I actually ran into Snickers and co. as I was stuffing my face with the above while sitting in my car (it had gotten cool and windy, and it's not exactly finger food).  They suggested that I continue my weekend food odyssey at the Folklorama festival Israel pavillion (more on that to come).  Fantastic idea.  I love when one meal leads seamlessly into an idea for the next!

To the victor go the spoils.  A successful day at the market!!

Those garlic bulbs are fantastic.  Look at 'em.  I used a clove the other day... I've seen smaller shallots, let me tell you.  And so fresh and fragrant... perfection.

Off to ogle my onions and research perogie gravy,
-Honeybee