Cheap to chic grass-fed beef

I've been fairly consistent about getting my weekday ground beef from the farmers market, but I wanted to get something different for saturday night.  I enjoy staying home for a nice saturday dinner for several reasons:  I have more control over the quality and quantity of my food, my girlfriend doesn't have to worry about gluten contamination, and I am more comfortable about eating medium-rare beef.  The latter is especially appealing after recently reading Fast Food Nation.  Eesh   But I have to make sure that I can out-do any steak house.

The more enticing cuts of grass-fed beef can be prohibitively expensive for a graduate student.  So to lower the cost, I was looking for something esoteric.  A shoulder clod* costs much less than steaks and is even cheaper than some other roasts, AND it happened to be on sale.  You just have to deal with the toughness of the cut.

Shoulder clod (far) and neck bones (near; a previous post...)

The entire goal of this recipe is to cook low-and-slow while still achieving medium rare, as both will improve tenderness.  As you'll see, wrapping the nearly finished roast in aluminum foil and a kitchen towel will allow the roast to finish cooking (medium-rare) and maintain enough heat to continue tenderizing the meat.  You'll sacrifice the texture of the crust, but it's well worth it.

Roast Shoulder Clod

1. Use a 2.5 lb shoulder clod roast.  Pat the roast dry and season liberally with salt and pepper, and a bit of garlic powder.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and store in the fridge for 12-24 hours (although I only did 3!).
2. Preheat the oven to 225°F**, and let the roast rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
3. Heat some beef tallow, or other high-heat cooking fat, in a heavy-bottomed pan. Sear all four sides of the roast.        
4. Place beef on a baking sheet and roast for 90 minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 135°F (for medium-rare).  Remove from the oven and wrap roast in heavy-duty aluminum foil, and then wrap in a kitchen towel.  Allow roast to rest like this for another 30 minutes. 
5. While resting, open a nice Cab that you essentially forgot that you had.  And fry-up some gluten-free squash blossoms, for good measure.

     5.  Slice as thin as possible.  Impossibly thin if you can...

Serve with some market vegetables.  Make sure to arrange food in a pretentious "man, I gotta' blog about this meal" sort of way.   

*From what I can tell, the shoulder clod that I bought was only part of a true shoulder clod.  Technically, beef clod refer to an entire beef shoulder.  Similar to the Boston Butt of a pig.

**I'm aware that it is generally a poor idea to rely on the oven in the summer, especially if you don't live in mild California.  This should work just as well on a grill or in a smoker.  However, if using a grill, roast meat on the unlit side of the grill and do your best to maintain this low temperature; this will mimic an oven.  

This post was submitted to Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday

Dinner a la The Sweet Beet blog

The Sweet Beet posted a recent recipe for "egg-muffins" that I was dying to try out.  So, the girlfriend and I made a Sunday supper out of them.  Like the previous post, it lends itself to farmers market ingredients.

We made a jam-packed spinach salad with apples, avocado, feta, and bacon.  It was dressed with a walnut-gorganzola-rasberry vinaigrette from Trader Joe's.  The muffins ended up as a side to the salad.  The girlfriend also picked up a couple of adirondack chairs for her balcony, so we took this occasion to open a Reisling from our Temecula trip in order to celebrate the weather and the supper.

Happy low-carb.  Happy farmers market.  Happy Sunday.

Easy Farmers Market Dinner

There are few things more satisfying that making an entire meal from the day's trip to the farmers market.  Unless, of course, you farmed the food yourself.  But that's another post.

Hopefully this will inspire some ideas or future meals.  Nothing extraordinary; it just helps to see what is easily forgotten.

Start with the appetizer.

Prepare an artichoke by clipping off the spikey ends of the outer leaves and chopping off the top of the 'choke, about an inch from the apex.

Steam for roughly 30 minutes, or until leaves are tender.  This was a gigantic artichoke.

Serve with melted butter and some cheddar from the market.  Unforuntately, gluten-free crackers are not to be found at the market.

And don't forget the wine.  Never forget the wine.

Roasted Herbed Chicken

We picked up a whole bird from the "egg guy."  They don't have broiler chickens, but instead sell old laying hens.  Simply delicious.

Remove the innards from the cavity, rinse with water, and dry very well.  I like to loosen the skin around the breast and thighs so that I can spread the softened butter and herb mixtures underneath the skin - any herbs will do.  Liberally season with salt and pepper over the skin.  And yes, I used twisted aluminum foil to tie the legs together.  Roast at 450°F for about 55 minutes (I believe this was a 3.5 lb. bird). 

Roasted Heirloom Carrots

We came across some heirloom carrots, and had to try them out.  They were stout  and came in bunches consisting of yellow ones, pink ones, and white ones.  

Since they were smaller than conventional carrots, we just sliced them into halves.  I like to toss them in melted butter, thyme, salt and pepper, then speard them over a baking sheet.  We covered the entire sheet with aluminum foil and roasted them with the chicken (450°F) for 25-30 minutes.  They browned sooner than I expected, but I caught them just in time.

Fresh cherries for dessert.  

Bon Appétit!

Memorial Weekend Farmers Market

The girlfriend has been traveling through Europe this weekend, so I had the weekend to myself.  And like any red-blooded bachelor with a free weekend would do, I went to the Santa Monica farmers market.

I was happy to see a vendor selling young coconuts.  I took the opportunity to buy one on my way out and enjoy it while walking the beach.  Coconut water and sun-derived vitamin D - a Sunday afternoon that would please any Paleo-diet advocate.  And yes, after finishing the water I did scrape up the coconut meat with a spoon.

 

I  mostly gathered (no Paleo-pun intended) vegetables from the market.  Unfortunately the beef vendor ran out of the cheap obscure cuts such as soup-bones or liver, so I'll just have to return another time for some good ole' grass-fed beef.  I also had to pick up some eggs to sit on (again, no pun intended) until next week.  I still have some farmers market eggs, but I just couldn't help myself from picking up more.  And I thought I would get another bunch of beets before I commit to spring and summer vegetables.  

Beets not pictured since they were being roasted!

I had to stock up on beans since I can't get them at the Torrance market.  The vendor confirmed my suspicions that black beans cook much easier than red or other beans.  I can slow-cook black beans on low while I'm on campus and return in the evening to tender beans, but other beans aren't quite as expedient.  Though the piquinto beans should be just as easy.  I'll report on those later.

And of course I had to make a farmers market salad.  I soaked the lettuce and cherries to shed off the dirt - and there was plenty - before dressing the salad with roasted beets, chopped cherries, avocado, Trader Joe's Orange Chicken, and tomatoes.  I used the orange sauce to make an orange-lime vinaigrette.  

Good and low-glycemic load ;)