Leftover makeover : pasta meat sauce

Meat pasta sauce is great  As a leftover. Just add some water or stock, whatever other leftovers you've got in the fridge and voila, you've got stew, or chili. Today I added frozen corn and leftover lentil rice. Yum. 

Perfect Prime Rib Roast

When I read that with this technique you're guaranteed a perfect medium rare prime rib roast, I was a little skeptical. At the same time, if it was true, then that's fantastic. Who wouldn't want to find a way to make a perfect prime rib roast every time? You pay some serious money to buy that stuff! So, we tried it for the first time for Christmas Eve dinner. I know. Probably should've tried it on our own before trying it for a large family Christmas meal....just upped the anti right? This better work. Well....

It worked.

It was beautiful. Perfect.
Sorry we don't have a picture to prove it, but it was beautiful. 

And this is how you do it:

To calculate your cooking time, multiply the exact weight of the roast in pounds (including the bones) by 5. Round the resulting number to the nearest whole number. The rib is cooked at 500 degrees F for exactly that many minutes. 

For example, we had a 4.34 kg roast. 4.34 kg = 9.548 lb, 9.548 x 5= 47.7 so cooking time at 500 F is 48 minutes. Once that time is up, turn the oven off and wait 2 hours before opening the oven door. And seriously, do not touch the door during those 2 hours. Just walk away. 

Remove the prime rib and slice into the most perfectly medium-rare meat you've ever seen. 

Important : roast MUST be cooked from room temperature

For the dry rub we used Emeril's Creole Seasoning:
2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried leaf oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
(But we substituted real minced garlic and onion instead of the powered stuff)

Cumin Fatty Beef

Tis the season for hotpot...and sometimes we forget we can't eat as much as we used to in our youth. In this case, we had an extra pound of fatty sliced beef leftover. It can't be refrozen...so what to do? This:

Fatty sliced beef
Onion
Cumin
Caraway seeds
Chili pepper 

Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Salt
Green onion garnish

Sauté the onions with the spices, add the beef. Continue sautéing with the rest of the seasoning until all the liquid is evaporated. Then garnish with green onions for color. Goes great with rice! (What's even better is to do this with sliced lamb.) Enjoy!

Beef stew

 

Another stew...cuz it's still cold out. =)

I used veal brisket as stewing meat...and these ingredients:

 

Tomatoes
Onions
Caraway seeds
Paprika
Cumin
Ketchup
Srirracha   

Rice wine

S&P to taste

Onions were softened first with the herbs. Then the brisket pieces were browned with the onions. Then a dash of rice wine (I didn't have red wine in the house.) The tomatoes went in after that along with ketchup (I didn't have tomato paste in the house) and srirracha. Heat was turned low for a nice simmer. And the consistency turned out just fine with the tomatoes releasing the water it had. I didn't have to add any more liquid surprisingly.

The only down side was that I only had about 40 minutes to stew the meat before it was served. While it was cooked through, it remained on the chewy side. It tasted great though.

My husband made a variation of this recently but it got to sit in a thermal cooker overnight. OMG. The brisket was melt in your mouth. I just need to plan a little further in advance....like I would need to for the ox tail stew. =)

Veal Flank Stew and Spring Salad

I bought some veal flank meat and thought a stew would be nice....but as Spring is here, pairing it with a fresh salad would be even nicer.

Stew:
Tomatoes
Mushrooms
Veal flank
Onion
Garlic
Cumin
Paprika
Sugar
Sriracha
BBQ Sauce
Ketchup
Tomato Paste
Various herbs that seemed to smell good together

Salad:
Spring Greens
Naval Orange cut to bite sizes
Chopped Almonds

Dressing:
Olive Oil
Grainy mustard
Honey
Lemon Juice

I Heart Beef Heart

Beef heart is one of those surprising cuts of meat that doesn't get very much fanfare...especially not compared to the prime rib roast...but totally one that is worthy of checking out!

It's WAY cheaper than a steak of the same weight. The cut pictured below cost me $3. It's also quite lean. If liver could taste like this, I'd eat way more of it. The texture is firm...with a bit of...crunch? to it. Not sure how to describe. Anyone else tried it before and can comment??

Just trim off the silverskin or whatever that lining is around the heart. If the heart isn't sliced to steak size already, you can do that for a more even cooking surface area. Season it like you would a steak (Montreal steak spice!). And then cook it to a medium/med. rare for the best texture and tenderness. It's quite chewy if fully cooked because there's no fat marbled in it. I love the flavor and texture.



Totally try this out!! =)

Leftover Makeover: Beef Stew

Remember the sirloin tip with very little meat fat, and wasn't slow cooked/braised so it came out rather chewy? Well it wasn't a big sell unfortunately. This meant I had a fair bit of leftovers and I needed to turn it into something yummy.

What better to hide it in than a stew! Stews hide everything. And because you're slow cooking it for a while, everything also gets quite tender. So that's where the roast went.

Sirloin tip roast leftovers
Carrots
King oyster mushrooms
Tomatoes
Onion
Garlic
Lentil stew leftovers
Paprika
Cumin
Rosemary
Red Wine

And it was good! Over rice and over pasta.