RECIPE WEDNESDAY - Beef Tips with Gravy and Mashed Potatoes

Last week I broke down the #14 brisket into multiple meals and mentioned that a third was set aside for a recipe I found on Pinterest for Tri-Tips with gravy and mashed potatoes.

I have to say that using the brisket was an excellent choice... and less expensive over all than the Tri Tip would have been.

The 1/3 of the brisket:

became this:

Even with trimming nearly all the fat/ hide away, this chunk still had quite a bit of marbling so I knew the meat would cook nicely and be tender enough for me to eat without my teeth if I had to. There are days my bottom plate just does not want to play nice. Anyway, that's another post. Back to the recipe.

I divided the chunks into two portions. One I used for this recipe and the other I froze to have when Bob comes home later in the month. 

I added a bit of olive oil to my heavy cast aluminum skillet. then chopped a medium yellow onion and added the equivalent of 2 garlic gloves of crushed garlic. When the onions were just soft, I added a couple of Tablespoons of butter and the meat junks. I cooked these just enough to brown the meat. 

I transferred this mixture to the crock pot then deglazed the skillet with about 1- 1/4 cup of beef broth. After deglazing, I added a can of Campbell's Golden Mushroom soup. The original recipe called for Beef Consomme but I had the Golden Mushroom and planned to add slices of portabella later. When the soup and broth were blended, I added them to crockpot, put the lid on and set the temp to LOW. I let this simmer for about 5.5 hours. 

About 1/2 way through cooking time I sauted the mushroom slices just to soften then added them to the crock pot.

Note - I did not add any other seasonings. I knew the soup and broth would have plenty of salt and I could add pepper to taste once I'd dished it up. Cooking that long, a lot of your spice flavors tend to dissipate in a crock pot. Their good for a 3-4 hour cook but anything longer and you are re-adding at the end. 

The original recipe also called for removing the meat from the pan at the end and making the juices into a gravy. But then their recipe is for the oven (slow cooked - NOT slow cooker). And I was hungry so I just spooned some of the 'pot liquor' as we called it growing up over the mashed potatoes

This recipe turned out quite tasty. 

When I got ready to put left overs away, I did take the steps to make the gravy, using a flower and milk thickening and packaged the gravy separately from the meat.

Next week, I take on Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings - with my own spin, of course.

Enjoy the Journey!

RECIPE WEDNESDAY - Crock Pot Broccoli Beef

A couple weeks ago I tried the Crockpot Broccoli Beef recipe from Just A Pinch that I found on Pinterest. While I need to make some adjustments to this recipe, I did like the concept over all. For one, I could not get the sauce to thicken up until I'd separate the juice from the rest of the goodies. However, by the time I'd made that move, everything was cooked too much. I also don't think the beef needs to cook as long (6-8 hrs on low) since I sliced mine much thinner. I could do this in 4 hours easy.

Here's what we started with:

This chuck roast was just under #2. I keep chuck/ pot roasts on hand as pot roast is one of Bob's favorite meals.. and very easy for me to do on a busy office day. 

One thing to keep in mind when slicing any meat. Always cut across the grain. If you cut with the grain, you are going to wind up with long pieces hard to chew. Here's an example:

Notice the piece on the right is cut with the grain. Long strips that will be difficult to bite unless you cook them beyond recognition. The slices on the right were cut cross-grain. These pieces will be tender. If you are not sure how a grain is running, cut a slice and see. Then you can rotate the cut if necessary and slice the other direction.  

This is what I wound up with:

In the crockpot with the recommended additions (see recipe at Just A Pinch).

As I said, slicing thin would have given me a cooking time of 4 hours before adding the broccoli. I'm also thinking next time I will quick steam the broccoli while I'm thickening the sauce then toss everything together. I realize this kind of defeats the purpose of the whole crock pot thing but keep in mind, the meat cooking in the juice will be very flavorful and slowcooking meat is usually the best way to get a tender morsel. Making the sauce and steaming the broccoli only takes five minutes at best and if you are serving over rice, you are going to take time to cook that anyway... so no real time inconvenience at all to do this in layers.