Roast Beast

Ready to serve the beast.

There is one grocery store item that is guaranteed to light up Kevin’s face when he discovers it in the fridge- a sizeable piece of beef. I think he was beef deprived as a child, while I, in Alberta, probably ate too much of it. Last time I was at the butcher, the rows and rows of boring chicken and ho-hum pork left me uninspired. Wandering over to the beef, a sirloin roast caught my eye. Roast beef-what could be a more perfect meal when there’s a chill in the air?

A hunk of meat like that always seems beast-like and carnal.  Which is great!  I already had visions of searing it and pairing it with big chunks of roasted root veggies. And gravy….oh yes…..gravy.

I find that Canadian Living rarely lets me down for homestyle traditional meals, so I decided to follow their Garlic Roast Beef & Gravy recipe. I like to sear my roast on the stove and then pop things in the oven, but they recommended an oven sear method, which starts the roast out at 450F. Since that sounded much easier, I tried it out. I must say it worked quite well. I am officially converted to oven searing.

Prepping the roast was a snap– the garlic and spice rub was easy to put together and slather the roast with. Then it went into the hot oven for 25 minutes. Another hour at 350F and the roast was a perfect medium-rare, and the gravy came together easy enough.

And so, with 2 hours start to finish: Voila, a wonderful roast dinner. I promise we had some side dishes, and not just a plate of juicy beef. But I didn’t want to detract from the beauty of the beast by writing about them.  The beef was so flavourful, as was the gravy; I’m definitely doing roast beef like this in the future. I think it would be great for a dinner party too. It’s so simple, but it tastes like you slaved away. Very gourmand.

The beautiful carnage of a perfectly cooked roast.