Cooking Misadventure

Deli roast beef is a bit pricey at $7.99/pound here, and roasts of the same cut are often on sale at half the price.  So I bought a slicing machine last month to slice my own sandwich meat from roasts I cook myself.  I'll probably have to do that a whole year to pay for the slicer, LOL!  But I bought a steamship round roast last month and cooked it to perfect rareness and cut it into 3' thick slabs.  The slicing went great for the 1st slab.  I froze the other 3 slabs for later slicing as needed.  And forgot I had them. 

So when I used up those 1st slices for sandwiches, I bought another roast ( a rump roast this time).  Two things went wrong with that.  First, I immediately discovered I still had most of the steamship round in the freezer.  So I might have a year's supply of roast beef sandwich meat. 

The second wrong thing was the cooking of the rump roast.  Now, I know how to cook it.  I stab it all over with my steely knives ('Hotel California', anyone?).  I push slivers of green pepper, onion, and garlic into the slits.  I even inject it with some red wine.  It comes out quite flavorful.  I don't like boring sandwiches... 

I slow-cook it 225F for several hours, fat side up for basting, and put a digital thermometer probe into the center set to alarm at 130F internal temperature.  Well, after several hours, I began to wonder why it hadn't reached temperature.  Yes, the oven was on.  The digital alarm, however, was NOT.  It was 145F internal when I checked, and of course the temperature rose above 150F as it rested on top of the stove after I took it out.  That is up into the "well-done" range, and I don't like it that much cooked.

ARGGGHHHH!

Well, I cut it into 3" slabs and put the slabs into plastic bags after it cooled in the fridge overnight.  Those are all in the freezer for some future use.  But I had the most-cooked pointed end of the roast left out.  Not liking to waste anything, I thought of what to do to save it.  Well, I had red and green bell peppers, and thought that with it sliced real thinly and a lot of moist veggies it might be OK.  And a sauce might help. 

So I got out my jar of beef boullion paste, put a teaspoon into a 1/3 cup very hot water to dissolve it, added some cornstarch to thicken it, added some spices and hot pepper flakes and a splash of soy sauce and shook the heck out of the container (easiest way to make a sauce I know of).

Then I sauteed the bell peppers slowly till softened, added the sauce to heat and thicken.  Added the very thinly sliced beef to heat through.  Well!  I've had worse pepper beef from chinese restaurants...  And the beef will probably be good with mushrooms and onions with regular beef gravy over noodles too.  So its not a loss; just a change in menus for a while.

I have a LOT of cooked beef roast to get through in the coming months...  LOL!

I'm more into pork and chicken and shrimp than beef, but after the poverty days of my 20s, I can eat nearly anything rather frequently if it is what I have.  And I am more creative about using what I have these days too.

My cooking motto is "whatever goes wrong, deal with it".