Joe Claro, King of the Roast Beef

Joe Claro makes a mean roast beef. That's my Dad, in case you didn't recall that from some of my other posts.

His method is simple just use some salt, pepper and roast the meat until cooked to your liking.

Everyday after school one of us five kids would get dinner started. Gran Fran would call us from her office (which was an actual office with a door and a ceiling, not a cube) and give us instructions. She talked at the lowest possible whisper, so we could barely hear when she said "Put the roast beef in for 1 hour. Make sure to put lots of salt on it." Trying to decipher her instructions took some time, and it often made me feel like we were involved in some kind of espionage instead of just dinner making.

Joe, on the other hand, always wanted to make sure that we knew the proper grammatical reason whether, when the roast was finished cooking, it was done or finished. I had to ask him to go back in time and outline his preference for the use of done or finished when referring to meat. We got in all kinds of trouble when we were kids. So, here's his definition (though he finally admits that maybe he's the only one who cares).

I am finished (with what I was doing). I have completed the activity I set out to complete.

The activity is done. It has been successfully completed.

I am (or you are, or she is) done should be used only when a person is the victim of cannibals, a tanning machine, or a hairdresser. Hence, the reference to roast beef.

On the other hand, if you check reliable usage sources,  you'll find that most otherwise respectable people no longer think this time-honored distinction is valid. This is one definite sign of the decline of Western civilization as we know it.

Let that be a lesson to you, young lady.

Now onto my all time favorite Joe-ism:  where does the inflection go when talking about roast beef?

The roast beef mispronunciation is a little harder to defend, but I'm ever willing to take on the extraordinary challenge.

In normal American English speech, a two-word noun-adjective phrase will almost always be pronounced with the stress on the noun. Nouns, after all, are far more meaningful than adjectives, which serve only to describe (or modify, in traditional grammatical jargon) the really important half of the phrase.

Of course, there are phrases in which we will on purpose emphasize the adjective, such as, "I wanted the GREEN beret, not the RED one." But that kind of pronunciation is by definition out of the ordinary, which is why we would usually exaggerate the emphasis.

So, unless you're talking about ROAST beef as opposed to BRAISED beef, emphasizing the adjective is careless, improper, and in some localities morally questionable.

And let that also be a lesson to you.

I am the grammarian about whom your mother warned you.

And so, goes my reminiscense of all things ROAST beef with Fran and Joe.

Roast Beef a la Joe

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 pound chuck roast
• Kosher or rock salt to coat the whole piece of meat
• Ground black pepper to coat the whole piece of meat

Method:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees
• Thoroughly dry the chuck roast.
• Roll the roast in the salt and pepper, making sure to make a nice even coating, if possible.
• Roast for fifteen minutes.
• Reduce heat to 375 degrees and roast for an additional 40 minutes.
• Remove from oven and let rest for fifteen minutes.
• Grab your handy electric knife and cut into thin slices.

Sweet Potatoes Three Ways

I don't have much to say here, short of the fact that sweet potatoes really float my boat.

They are good many ways, so I've chosen to share three with you today: mashed, oven fries and baked. Each is good in its own way and all are a welcome addition to any table.

A lot of my friends are wary when I tout the goodness of sweet potatoes, since their main exposure to them has been in the form of a casserole covered in marshmallows and maple syrup. That makes them sweet in the wrong way, and I understand why my friends are not huge fans of the sweet potato. Generally, once they've tried one of my plain and simple treatments, they are converted.

Enjoy them on their own or integrated into a meal with a salad and a roast.

Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

• 1 to 4 sweet potatoes, skinned, boiled and diced
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 tablespoon butter
• Salt to taste

Preparation

• Put boiled potatoes in a bowl, add milk, butter and salt and mash them all up thoroughly.
• You can also add 2 tablespoons of grated cheese like parmesan or sharp cheddar to the warm potatoes.

Oven-Baked French Fries

Ingredients

• 1 to 4 sweet potatoes, skinned and cut into matchsticks
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt to taste

Preparation

• Place potato matchsticks on a rimmed baking sheet and put them into a 425 degree oven. Bake for 20 minutes, flipping the potatoes over halfway through the cooking time. Remove from oven, salt and serve.

Baked Potatoes

Ingredients

• 1 to 4 potatoes (sweet, russet, new), pierced with a fork

Preparation

• Bake potatoes for 40 minutes, remove from oven, pop open the potatoes and serve!
• Serve with butter, sour cream, bacon or grated cheese.

Beet Salad with Oranges

 Gran Fran knows her way around beets. She would make them for us on a regular basis. Her salad involves only some olive oil and vinegar. And, she also cooks her with the skin on, removing it after cooking. Her method involves roasting the beets in the oven individually wrapped in foil (Gran Fran, let me know if I'm wrong here). Skinning the hot beets made me stay away from beet cooking for a good long time. My hands not only turned red from the juice, but also were slightly burned each time I tried to de-skin one of the beets.

My sister Danielle taught me this method, which turns your fingers red immediately, but leaves you with fewer burn marks on your hands. I think I end up with more beets, too. Using a vegetable peeler allows you to remove just the brown skin and preserve more of the good stuff.

I cook the beets in what will become the dressing for the final product, too, which gives you a really flavorful dressing. And, you are able to eat these hot, if you want to, without having to waste any time peeling off the skin.

The addition of oranges and sunflower seeds to this salad make it the perfect Spring-is-Here dish. It's fruity and earthy with just a little bit of crunch.

Featured on The Fruit Guys website.

Beet Salad with Oranges

INGREDIENTS

• 3 beets, skins peeled off, greens removed, cut into eighths.
• 1 small shallot, cut into quarters
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 orange cut into small pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon sunflower seeds
• Salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Place the beet and shallots onto a rimmed baking sheet, or into a baking pan large enough to allow space between the pieces.
3. Mix together the vinegar, oil, salt and pepper and pour the mixture over the beets, making sure to coat all sides of the beets.
4. Roast the beets in the oven for 40 minutes, or until fork tender, turning the beets every ten minutes or so.
5. In a large bowl, mix together the warm beets with the orange segments.

Featured: Slow Cooker Spicy Sausage Tomato Sauce: America's Test Kitchen Feed

Imagine my surprise when, after a busy day at work, I came home to check in on Twitter and found out that America's Test Kitchen Feed had featured my photo!

You may recall that I made America's Test Kitchen's Slow Cooker Spicy Sausage Tomato Sauce recently. I posted a photo via Twitter and voila, it is now on their website.

The recipe is really simple and the results are great. Get this in the slow cooker, go out and have a fun day and enjoy this sauce just a few hours later.

Featured: DailyBuzz HealthyLiving: Avocados

My avocado and egg smash up is featured on today's DailyBuzz HealthyLiving site.

I'm excited to try some of the other recipes, especially the dark chocolate avocado mousse.

Congratulations to Peanut Butter Fingers, Running with Tongs, Skinny Taste, Kahakai Kitchen, Fun, Fit and Fabulous, Green Lite Bites and Bran Appetit.

Go get some avocados and give whip up one of these excellent recipes.

Repost from Paris: Greek Sandwich

a favorite sandwich from our 2010 trip to Paris....

GREEK SANDWICH!!

Oh man, this is good!

Michelle took me to her favorite greek sandwich place in the Mouffetard (Rue de Contrescarpe is just nearby).

It’s a sandwich that includes fries….on it! Did the purveyors of such a treat say to themselves “what kind of sandwich would Tashi like best?” and then add the fries to make it my favorite thing ever?!

Chicken marinated in secret spices, though I definitely tasted oregano in there. And the white sauce they put on there may have had yogurt. Oh, the pita bread was fresh and the tomatoes, too.

I do believe this kicked the L’As du Falaffel’s sandwich down to number two, but either would be delightful.

You can re-create one in your own home by using this lovely recipe.

The original post can be found on my Paris travel blog here.

Enjoy!

Veggies in the Oven: Cauliflower Gratin and Roasted Asparagus

 These two vegetable dishes are super easy to make and can be used as either a side dish or with some small additions, as a main dish. The roasted asparagus can be served with pasta and a poached egg, as a main dish. If you like, you can add bacon to the cauliflower gratin to make it just that much heartier.

Featured on The Fruit Guys website, here and here.

Cauliflower Gratin

Ingredients

• 1 head cauliflower, cut into florets, steamed for five minutes
• ¼ cup breadcrumbs (regular or Glutino gluten-free)
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Put the cauliflower into a casserole dish. Cover with breadcrumbs, grated Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.
3. Bake for 20 minutes, until the breadcrumbs are browned and cheese is melted.

Roasted Asparagus

Ingredients

• 1 bunch asparagus stalks, bottoms trimmed off
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 450.
2. Place asparagus on a rimmed baking sheet and pour olive oil evenly over the top. Turn the asparagus over a few times to coat all sides in the olive oil.
3. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes, until the stalks become browned and wilted.

Slow Cooker Pasta Sauce and a Review: America's Test Kitchen Pasta Revolution

Hello friends. I know I've mentioned here a time or two how much I love Cook's Illustrated magazine. Well, I'm even more in love with the America's Test Kitchen Pasta Revolution cookbook, especially their slow cooker pasta sauce.

Now you may think it odd that I, a gluten-free lady, would be psyched about pasta sauce. Well you know what?  A lovely brand of brown rice pasta makes it very easy for me to participate in all things pasta again.

And, you may also wonder why a lady who was raised by another lady who happens to be an excellent Italian-American cook would want a pasta sauce book. I'm here to tell you, we all have our ways of cooking, and pooh-pooh other versions of our tried-and-true recipes. I've never made a tomato sauce that has onions or sugar in it (Gran Fran says that's not the way it's done). Nor have I ever tried to use a slow cooker for sauce (Gran Fran's head is now exploding in NYC while she reads this and discovers that I had the audacity to leave an appliance not only plugged in but on and simmering things for hours on end in an empty house).

I went through the book and found many interesting recipes, including some for Asian style noodles, which happen to be rice, that I will totally try to make. I chose to make the Spicy Sausage Ragu with Red Peppers: it's one of the slow cooker pasta sauce recipes in the book. I'm new to slow cooking (see comment above about Gran Fran's head exploding) and I'm also not the best at actually following all the steps in a recipe. Since I create my own recipes 98 percent of the time, I find it hard to believe that anyone knows better than I how to put something together.

My previous successes with Cook's Illustrated recipes reminded me that I had to take the time to really make this recipe. I made a pact with myself to follow every step in the Ragu recipe, including browning ingredients before throwing them into the slow cooker. I tend to wing it, so this was a true test of my patience. I'd also like to point out that I started cooking this at 6am so that it would be ready for dinner with a friend by 7pm. I think my neighbors are more than fed up with their noisy cooking crazy person on the second floor (that's me, if you didn't catch on) who tends to cook late at night or early in the morning. Who knows? All I know is that a good recipe with clear instructions really floats my boat.

If I can follow this in the wee early morning hours and have a great dish by dinner, I fully recommend this book to all of you. It's especially good for people like me who need to find some discipline and pay attention to directions every once in awhile. As it turns out, I really did enjoy leaving my comfort zone and trying a new version of something I've made hundreds of times. I'm really excited to cook my way through a bunch of these recipes and will be posting my results.

I will say, though, as delicious as this sauce is when first prepared, it is even better re-heated. The initial sauce turned out a bit thin for my liking (my friend, however, said it was just the way she liked it, so maybe it's personal preference). The sauce thickened nicely as the portions were reheated. That said, I loved the flavors, but I have to admit, I left some of the sausages in their skins and cut them up into chunks to go along with the sausage meat. I just love a chunky sauce. Other than that, I followed the recipe to a T and was rewarded with a great sauce.

Give this book a try, even if you consider yourself an advanced cook. America's Test Kitchen recipes always teach me something new and turn out great.

Spicy Sausage Ragu with Red Peppers

(Slow Cooker Pasta Sauce)

Makes 12 cups

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 pounds hot Italian sausage, removed from its casing
• 2 onions, minced
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh oregano or 2 teaspoon dried
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
• 1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (28 oz) can tomato sauce
• 2 red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded and cut into 1/2" pieces
• 1/2 cup minced fresh parsely
• Salt & Pepper

Method:

• Heat 1 tablespoon oil in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add sausage and brown well, breaking up large pieces with a wooden spoon, about 5 minutes; transfer to slow cooker
• Add onions, garlic, tomato paste, oregano, and red pepper flakes to fat in skillet and cook over medium-high heat until onions are softened and lightly browned, 8-10 minutes.
• Stir in wine, scraping up brown bits and simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes. Add ingredients to the slow cooker.
• Stir crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, and tomato sauce into the slow cooker.
• Cover and cook until the sauce is deeply flavored. 9 to 11 hours on low; 5 to 7 hours on high.
• Let sauce settle for 5 minutes, then remove fat from surface using a large spoon.
• Microwave bell peppers with remaining tablespoon of oil in bowl, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes.
• Stir softened bell peppers into sauce and let sit until heated through, about 5 minutes.
• Before serving, stir in parsley and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Author's Note:

I received a complimentary copy of

America's Test Kitchen Pasta Revolution.

There was no monetary compensation for this review.

Featured: Hard-Boiled Eggs, DailyBuzz Moms

What a nice Monday surprise to find that I was lucky enough to be featured again on the DailyBuzz Moms site. My hard boiled eggs thank them for all the nice coverage.

Please check out the post and see all the lovely hard boiled egg recipes included, too.