Savory, hearty, grass fed roast beef

Picture yourself getting home from a long day at work

You're tired, and a biting wind has chilled you to the bone in the few minutes you were outside walking home or to your car. Grass fed beef roast is the perfect comfort food to warm your insides and build your reserves for the long, cold winter, and it's so easy and inexpensive.

The aroma will soothe you the moment you walk in the door

So quick and easy in the morning
It was simply a matter of oiling the bottom of a roasting pan with olive oil, slicing an onion, placing a frozen grass fed beef Heel of Round Roast and the sliced onion in the pan, adding salt, pepper, and water. Then you just covered the roasting pan and placed it in a 250 degree F oven and left it for the day. Actually it took less than 10 minutes to prepare.

Relax
Now that you're home you want to take a moment to relax before dinner, and that's OK since a slow cooked roast only gets better the longer it cooks.

You pour yourself a glass of your favorite white wine then peel and slice a cucumber and wash a handful of cherry tomatoes. Then you pour some of your favorite Ranch Dressing in a bowl (mine is homemade Ranch Dressing) and begin to enjoy a delicious and healthy appetizer to munch on while you prepare the evening's vegetables and a salad.

Making the salad
You can make it as complicated or as easy as you want. Nowadays it's easy to find pre-washed organic salad greens, even at the grocery store, so all you have to do is open the bag and dump them into a bowl. If you're of a mind to you can also purchase all your greens separately, wash and break them up, and then cut up tomatoes, carrots, onions, red cabbage, or any of your favorite salad ingredients.

Prepare your vegetables
While you're enjoying your wine and mini cru d' ete you wash some organic broccoli, cauliflower, and red bell peppers. Then you heat up a little olive oil in a skillet, slice the red peppers and get them sautéing.

Next, after munching on a few more raw veggies, and a few more sips of wine you put water on to boil in the bottom portion of the steamer, and break up the broccoli and cauliflower florets, placing them in the top portion of the steamer. Then you give the red peppers a stir and finally place the steamer with the broccoli and cauliflower over the boiling water.

You've decided to go all out
When you peek in at the roast you see all that fabulous Au Jus just begging to be made into scrumptious gravy. But what to do with gravy? At this point you could microwave a baked potato, but you're trying to not eat too many carbs at night, so you get a second wind and decide to make faux mashed potatoes from the cauliflower and broccoli.

Faux mashed potatoes
It's simply a matter of placing the steamed cole vegetables in the blender with a little milk or half and half. Once the broccoli and cauliflower are blended up they have the consistency of mashed potatoes, though not quite as thick and heavy. If you had only done cauliflower it would have looked very much like mashed potatoes, but because of the broccoli the coloration is different. But that's OK, it looks good and it will be the perfect receptacle for the gravy.

Making gravy
The final thing to do is get the roast out of the oven, place the meat in your serving dish and pour the Au Jus into a large sauce pan. (At this point you can choose to place the roast back in the roasting pan with a little Au Jus and put it back in the oven to keep it warm).

Then you quickly make a rue, which is simply some flour and water thoroughly mixed (I like to use whole spelt flour or oat flour) then gently pour it into the Au Jus as it is heating in the sauce pan. Stir and let simmer until thickened.

Ready to eat
OK, now you're ready to experience a hearty, wholesome meal of roast beef, broccoli and cauliflower faux mashed potatoes, sweet sautéed red peppers, and green salad. You'll most likely want to switch over from white wine to a favorite Pinot Noir or Cabernet to enhance the meal.

Time to enjoy!
Prep time for the whole meal only took about ten minutes in the morning and a half hour at most for the evening prep. Now you and your family can sit down and relax to a delicious and incredibly satisfying meal after very little effort, with ample time to enjoy.

When family members share in the preparation it can go even faster while creating a bond and deep camaraderie.

The leftovers

Beef and noodles
One of my favorites is to mix the roast beef and leftover gravy, heat it up, and serve it over rice pasta. This one is sure to please the kids.

Roast beef sandwiches
Of course you can always make roast beef sandwiches to take to work with you. If you didn't make gravy from the Au Jus you can make delicious French Dip sandwiches to dip in the Au Jus.

Stew or Soup
In a stock pot sauté onions, garlic, celery, and carrots in a little olive oil, add homemade grass fed beef stock, shred up the remainder of the roast beef and add it to the stock. Season as you desire (I use salt, pepper, celery seed, thyme, and marjoram but you can choose your own) for a steamy, hearty and delicious savory soup. Add potatoes and less stock to make it into stew.

Quesadillas or Tostadas
For quesadillas place shredded roast beef on a tortilla, cover with chiles, tomatoes, and shredded cheese, cover with a second tortilla and fry in olive oil in a skillet until cheese is melted.

For tostadas place beef on a tostada shell, cover with chiles, tomatoes, and shredded cheese then place under a broiler until cheese is melted.

Use your own imagination
Be creative and use your own imagination to come up with other great uses for leftover roast beef. You'll be amazed when you start thinking of what you can do, the ideas will come pouring in.