Irish Week (still?!?): Corned Beef Hash and a Reuben Sandwich

These pictures suck. I was much more concerned with eating than taking pics of the food this weekend. I apologize.

Making 4 pounds of corned beef for yourself means that you will have quite a bit of leftover corned beef. Hence, Irish week continues. 

Thank goodness there are a million ways to use leftover corned beef. And on Saturday, there sounded nothing better to a maybe slightly hungover me than consuming corned beef hash while watching NCAA basketball. So that's what I did.

2 Tbsp. olive oil

2 baking potatoes (about 1 lb), peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1 onion, chopped

Coarse salt and ground pepper

1 red bell pepper, chopped

2 Tbsp prepared horseradish

1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

8 oz shredded corned beef

1/4 cup heavy cream

1. Heat oil in a 10- or 12-inch cast iron (or other non-stick) skillet over medium heat. Add potatoes; cook, turning often, until golden, 10 to 12 minutes.

2. Add onion; season with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook, stirring often, until potatoes and onions are browned, 5 minutes.

3. Add bell pepper, horseradish, and Worcestershire sauce. Cook until peppers are tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in corned beef and cream until warmed through, about 2 minutes. Serve immediately.

Who needs to go out to brunch when something so spectacularly tasty can be made at  home???

Still left with quite a bit of corned beef, I made a Reuben on Sunday (while watching NCAA basketball, of course).


2 slices rye bread
1/4 lb corned beef, sliced thinly
3 slices Swiss cheese
Sauerkraut
Russian dressing
Butter


For Russian dressing:
2 Tbsp mayonnaise
1 Tbsp ketchup
2 tsp dill pickle relish (I minced half a dill pickle instead of using relish because I don't have or like pickle relish.)
Salt and pepper


1. Combine ingredients for Russian dressing in a bowl.


2. Place corned beef, cheese and sauerkraut on 1 slice rye bread. Spread the Russian dressing on top and place the second slice of bread on top of that. 


3. Butter the outside of the top piece of bread, place in a pan (or a panini maker) to grill butter side down. Butter the top side, flip, and grill. 

Another wonderful corned beef meal. I am sad to say goodbye to Irish week, but it has to happen. Until next year...

Bon appetit.

Roast Beef with Roasted Tomato Chimichurri

This roast beef is sort of a big deal for me because I have never made roast beef. One of the three cuts of meat left from my 2010 cow was a sirloin tip roast. It lingered in my freezer for this long because I don't know off the top of my head what to do with a sirloin tip roast. Apparently you roast it. Which I did. And it was delicious.


The best-sounding recipe I found by googling "sirloin tip roast" was for a Sirloin Tip Roast with Spicy Roasted Tomato Sauce. Looking at the recipe, the sauce was just chimichurri with roasted tomatoes in it. I am calling a spade a spade and changing the name of the recipe to Roast Beef with Roasted Tomato Chimichurri. 


I have made the Brussels sprouts before (see here) so I won't re-post the recipe. But let me tell you, it is the tastiest and easiest Brussels sprouts recipe ever.


Roast Beef:
1 (2 to 2 1/2-pound) sirloin tip roast
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 Roma tomatoes, cut in half
2 teaspoons herbs de Provence
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper


Roasted Tomato Chimichurri Sauce:
1 1/2 cups fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 garlic cloves
1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil


1.  For the roast beef, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.


2.  Season the beef with salt and pepper. Season the tomatoes with salt, pepper, and herbs de Provence.


3.  Place a Dutch oven over medium-high heat and heat the olive oil. Sear the beef over high heat on all sides. Turn off heat. Place the seasoned tomatoes around the seared beef and place the pan in the oven. Roast until a meat thermometer reads 130 degrees F. for medium rare, 135 for medium, about 30 to 40 minutes. Take the roast out of the oven, tent loosely with foil, and let rest for 10 to 15 minutes. The internal temperature of the meat should rise 5 degrees F more and the juices will redistribute into the roast.


4.  For the chimichurri, place the parsley and garlic in a food processor and pulse until the parsley is finely chopped. Add the red pepper flakes, salt, red wine vinegar and the roasted tomatoes from the beef pan and process until pureed. Add the olive oil in a steady stream with the machine running.


5.  To serve, slice the roast and place on a serving platter. Drizzle a little sauce over the meat. Serve the remaining sauce in a small bowl alongside.


Because, like a normal human being I do not eat an approximately 3 pound roast in one sitting or pretty much anything I cook in one sitting, I have to be good about using leftovers. Roast beef is a pretty easy thing for leftovers. Who doesn't love roast beef, cheddar, horseradish, and mustard on a crusty roll? Here is the sandwich I ate the day after I made the roast.

Bon appetit.

Baby Back Ribs and Baked Beans

I can confidently say that ribs are one of my favorite things to eat, and they have been since I was a very young child. When I was a kid, I couldn't say my rs properly, and my parents still tease me about my reply each year to what I wanted for my birthday meal: WIBS!

I had a couple packages of baby back ribs from the pork I bought last winter that I intended to grill over the summer. I did not grill them, so I needed to find a good baked rib recipe.

I was talking with a friend last week, and he told me he was going to make ribs for a Sunday football watching party. Since he was making oven-baked ribs that he claims are the best, I requested he send me the recipe. The following are the directions I received, straight from his email.

"So the recipe is super easy...

Take a rack of baby back ribs, thawed, and apply fed pepper flake, onion powder, and a little garlic salt. Cover with a thin layer of dark brown sugar and press it into the ribs.

Let sit for an hour.

Heat oven to 300 degrees.

Put into a baking pan that is deep enough so when you cover the pan with foil, it doesn't touch the ribs (not a necessity to not touch them).

Brush liberally with Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce. Cover pan with foil and place in the oven.

At hour one remove and baste liberally again with sauce. Back in oven covered with foil.

Do the same at hour two.

At hour three, remove from oven and baste liberally. Kick temp up to 400 and put back on oven uncovered for 15 min or so to just dry the sauce on the ribs a little bit.

Remove and pull the ribs out. Let sit for 15 minutes. Split into chunks of 3 ribs.

You can use the drippings as a sauce if you skim a bit of the fat off. Serve with Bush's honey baked beans.

As a leftover idea, hand pull the leftover rib meat and mix with a little of the leftover beans. Toast two slices of white bread and put a slice of Swiss on it, some jalapeño slices, and the pork/bean mixture. Eat as a sandwich.

YUM!!!"

Yum is right. I followed the directions exactly, but instead of serving with Bush's beans, I made my own baked beans.  Here's the recipe.

8 cups cold water
2 3/4 cups (1 pound) dried Great Northern beans
4 strips bacon
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 cup beer, preferably  pale ale
2 cups water
1/2 cup molasses
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp light brown sugar
2 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp salt


1. In a large stockpot, bring the cold water to a boil over high heat. Add the beans to the boiling water and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, cover, and let soak for 1 hour. Drain in a colander and rinse the beans.


2. Heat a 10- or 12-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until golden, turning once. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel. Pour off all but 3 tablespoons of the bacon fat.


3. Return the skillet to medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally and scraping up the browned bits from the bacon, until golden brown. Add the beans, beer, water, molasses, maple syrup, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, dry mustard, and paprika. Coarsely chop the bacon and add it to the skillet. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for 3 hours. Add water as needed to keep the beans covered. During the last half hour of cooking, remove the lid and don't add any additional water to the beans. When the beans are done, stir in the salt just before serving.

I even used the leftovers to make a sandwich, as instructed. I did deviate from the recipe a bit by using a baguette instead of white bread. Mmm.

Two delicious meals.

Bon appetit.

Grilled Veggie Sandwich

This meal is so not in line with my goal of eating all the beef in my freezer, nor is it normal for me to prepare a dinner completely absent of meat, but sometimes I just get a craving for something really specific.  Last Sunday, that craving was a grilled veggie sandwich with hummus.


I don't have much to say about the recipe for making this sandwich.  Okay, I guess I have a couple pearls of advice, some of which may be common knowledge?  I don't know.


1.  You should always salt slices of eggplant and let them weep for a half hour or so before grilling (or using them for whatever you're going to use them for) to remove bitterness.


2.  The best way to roast bell peppers is to put them under the broiler, turning them until all sides are pretty well blackened.  Then remove them from the oven, put them in a paper bag, seal the paper bag however you want to seal it (I fold it down then secure it with bag clips), and let them cool in the bag.  Doing this makes the skin easy to remove.


3.  This isn't advice, but grilled romaine is really tasty.


4.  So is bread brushed with olive oil and grilled.


I guess the above is sort of the recipe for the sandwich I made, being that if you put everything mentioned together with a spread of hummus, that's it.


Bon appetit.

The Shooter Sandwich, because that's how I roll

Last week, a friend who obviously knows me quite well sent me this link to a recipe for "The Shooter Sandwich" and suggested I make said sandwich as soon as possible.  I was out of town when I received the link, but as suggested, as soon as I was back home I did as told and created the masterpiece that is the Shooter Sandwich.

The sandwich consists of a largish sourdough boule, 2 ribeyes, 1 onion, sliced, 6 cloves garlic, minced, 2 tsp tarragon, 2 Tbsp worcestershire sauce, 1/3 cup bourbon, 4-7 oz. butter, prepared horseradish, and stone ground mustard.  Unfortunately, I did not have any ribeyes left from the 6 Ranch cow so I had to purchase beef for the first time in I don't know how long.

I'll let you click on the link for directions on making the sandwich, but the progression of the sandwich in pictures and my notes are as follows:

- I don't like mushrooms or shallots, so I substituted an onion.  It turned out spectacularly.

- You really do need to limit the searing of the ribeyes to 90 - 120 seconds per side.  I did 90 seconds per side, and it was perfect.  This sandwich would SUCK if the meat were anything more than very quickly seared, i.e. basically raw.

Also, I actually did light the bourbon on fire and got a picture of it, no less.

That's about it.  This was, I think, the best sandwich I have ever eaten.

Bon appetit.