Roast Beef and Gravy.
I love roast beef. It’s even my favorite deli meat, next to dried beef, but that sounds too complicated to make. Roast beef is really quite easy, I don’t understand why so many people are intimidated by it.
I also love mashed potatoes and gravy. It’s the gravy part really.
Roast Beef
1.5-3lb roast (arm roast, chuck roast, I’m not picky. I find that being a little ignorant to the cuts of beef means choosing is less stressful, I just go to the meat counter, pick something that looks the right size and buy it.)
1 slice white onion
Salt
Pepper
Water
Preheat the oven to about 300 degrees. Place roast in a roasting pan with about 3/4-1 inch water. salt and pepper the meat, and place the onion slices on it. The onion is optional, I use it because my Mom does, not really for any other reason. Put it in the oven. Fresh meat should roast about 75 minutes per pound (that’s an hour and 15 minutes. Heh.). If it’s frozen, add about 30 minutes. I admit this is all an estimate. I just throw it in there and wait until it smells done. But that doesn’t help you a bit, does it?
Once done, remove the roast from the juices, place it on a plate and cover it with the roasting pan lid. Use a lid. If you don’t all the gravy juices evaporate, and the meat gets dry.
On to the gravy…
Gravy
Roast juices
Kitchen Bouquet (for red meat gravy)
About 1/2 cup flour and some water (again an estimate, but at least it will get you in the ball park) will mixed.
Pour the flour/water mixture in with the roast juices and mix thoroughly. Heat over the stove (on high) until it boils and thickens. As it’s heating, pour in a teaspoon or so of Kitchen Bouquet. Add salt and pepper to taste. I usually use quite a lot of salt. Because I like salt. So, do what you like.
So…what happens if you make a roast and your inlaws company decides they can’t come for lunch and instead they’re coming for dinner? Or, what do you do if you make a big stinkin’ roast and you have a bunch of left overs? Well, read on.
Bar-B-Que Beef Sandwiches
1 Roast Beef. Roasted.
1 big bottle of KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce - it’s the best.
A bit of water
1 bag of buns
Pull the roast apart until it’s basically shredded. Dump in a whole bunch of BBQ sauce and heat over medium heat until hot. Add a bit of water to make it smooth. Serve on buns. Now isn’t that a nice fix?
Problem solved.
Once my mom was making gravy and she used warm water with the flour instead of cold. When she was done shaking it up (in the very same Tupperware gravy shaker thing you have), she popped up the top and flour water EXPLODED everywhere! Ever since then I remember to use cold water when making gravy, not warm.
Now I’m hungry for a roast. Ummm, roast beef…tasty.
That’s hilarious!! Hmmm….good practical joke as long as the water isn’t to hot.
I do not care for roast beef as a deli meat. In fact, it gives me the jibblies a little bit. I wonder why you like it and I don’t.
I do, however, love warm roast beef.
Is it because you don’t like the fat globules that re-coagulated and stuck to the meat?
Mmmmmmmmm……. roast beef and gravy. Delicious! I’m a roux maker for gravy, myself, but gravy made any way is the best food known to man. Gravy on bread? That is heaven right there.
Great dinner idea Beth! I have to admit I make roasts but always in the crockpot. I’ve been a chicken to try it in the oven-I’m always afraid I will completely dry it out. Yet my husband tells me how much he would like roast and maybe some veggies in the oven. I’ll have to try out your way- and even make gravy. My hubby will be in hog heaven, or is that beef heaven?
I LOVE roast beast…hot w/gravy! I make mine in a crock pot too.
I make it different depending what I have on hand. And thanks for the tip on putting the lid on to keep in juices. I think that’s why I stopped making it in the oven. My mom always made it in the oven & it was the best! (but she died before I started cooking so I never got her techniques, dnag it… so I’ve created my own.)
I made this last night, but it was horribly dry. I did put potatoes and carrots under the roast, though, so it didn’t sit in water. Maybe that was the difference. And I didn’t cook it 75 minutes per pound because it was three pounds and that meant cooking it for four hours and fifteen minutes, and that seemed long to me because I was hungry.
So I guess I’m saying I didn’t cook it like you at all. Except I did put an onion on top of it.
Dang. Three hours and forty-five minutes. I never was good at arithmetic.
Yea…that happens to me once in a while, too. The dry thing I mean. That’s why I always keep bbq sauce on hand.
Maybe it has to do with the cut of meat…and maybe I should become less ignorant about that…
Did you make gravy? If you slice it up and put it in the gravy, that helps…sometimes.
temperature is probably the best way to know if your meat is done and be sure it doesn’t dry out. But I don’t trust our thermometer and I’m too cheap to buy another one.