The roast beast, I mean beef, at our Christmas dinner this year.
Okay, so it’s not really roast beast, but roast beef instead. Like I said, I decided I was tired of having turkey twice in a row every year and wanted to mix it up a bit for Christmas dinners.
The first year I found a recipe from a magazine for something like cherry glazed Cornish game hens and I was serving something like 16 people. And I had a bitty baby who came down with a cold on the 23rd. The only reason I was able to pull it off was my fabulous soon-to-be sister-in-law! Since then, I have learned to simplify a bit.
Often I have chosen to do a beef roast. Believe it or not, this can be really easy! I still haven’t perfected it yet, but here’s what I did this year. I was trying to repeat what my mom did to cook the roast at my house last year. She had read an article in Cooks Illustrated, but was having to do it from memory because she forgot to bring the article. Her method turned out to be even easier. This year we consulted both her notes and the original article before I cranked up the oven.
I got an almost 6 lb. rib roast; my local HEB butcher automatically cut the bones loose and retied it.
1. When we came down for stockings took the roast out of the fridge.
2. After breakfast a couple hours later, I seasoned it with salt, black pepper, and garlic powder. (You are supposed to do this at least the night before, but I ran out of time.) I inserted the oven meat probe and put it in an unheated oven on convection roast set to 375 for an hour. The temperature started out at 52 degrees.
3. At the end of the hour the internal temperature was 88 degrees. I turned off the oven, didn’t open the door, and left it for 3 hours.
4. We aren’t sure if we used the convection setting last year or not, but last year we then turned the oven back on for 45 minutes. If your roast beef isn’t up to the temperature you want, turn the oven back on. This year, my roast was already at 156 degrees when the three hours was up. I couldn’t believe it! I even took the temperature in a new spot just to be sure.
5. We then took it out of the oven and let it rest while we prepared the rest of the meal.
It was fabulous, but it could have been a bit more tender and I would have preferred a slight touch of pink; it was well done. Next time I’ll try a lower cooking temperature if I use convection. In spite of being well done, it was so delicious that we would all like to try it again soon!
The rest of the meal? It was really easy on Christmas Day! The rest took about 45 minutes because all the dishes could either be started or made completely days earlier.
Everlasting Rolls : Sparkle made them from my mom’s recipe. She shaped them, then we let rise in the refrigerator for 4 days, then left them out on the kitchen counter all morning before baking. They turned out much better than they ever did when I made them!
Scalloped potatoes: I baked them halfway a couple of weeks ago and froze them, then thawed them on the refrigerator overnight. I made sure they weren’t icy before I put them in the oven for another 30 minutes.
Sauteed green beans: made Christmas day, which is why I got distracted and cooked a bit too much.
I forgot to make the cherry salad! But that would have been made the day before.
Oh well, we were still too full for the sweet potato pie and coconut cake with raspberry filling until much later. The coconut cake was made by Sparkle and rescued by me when I noticed the batter didn’t look right. She forgot to put in the eggs! I’m glad to know that Sparkle still needs her mom sometimes; she’s only 12!