Easter Dinner At Almost Heaven South

This is a liitle long so I appologize in advance.  Since I had a packer bag full (six) of tri tip roasts that had been wet aging in the fridge for a month, we decided a couple of them would make a good Easter meal for the ten of us. I know - not a very traditional Easter meal except in perhaps Santa Maria, California.  Here they are trimmed and ready.

I once again used the process and recipe from John over at Patio Daddio as we thought it was great last time. I followed his recipe and process except doubled the recipe for our 5# of meat.

Ingredients

1 Tri-tip roast (2-3 pounds)
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce (Lea & Perrins, of course)
2 Tbsp Montreal steak seasoning (I recommend McCormick's)
1 Tbsp Plain yellow mustard (I use French's)
2 tsp Chili powder (I recommend Gebhardt's)
2 tsp Beef base (I recommend Better Than Bouillon)
1/2 tsp Garlic salt

Method

Combine all of the ingredients, except the Montreal steak seasoning, in a small mixing bowl. Mix well and set aside.

Then trim up the meat, slather with the marinade, put in a plastic bag, and store in the fridge for at least 6 hours or overnight. I was up early and started the process at 5:30am for a 9 hour soak.

The two to be cooked for dinner.

I removed them from the fridge at 1:30 to warm up prior to cooking.

I used my gas grill (it’s bigger) and cooked them indirect to an internal temperature of 125* adding red oak chips in foil pouches. In order to collect the pan juices, I cooked them on a rack in a foil lined jelly roll pan to a temp of 125*, which took just over an hour, but there were no pan juices.

Since they were done earlier than I expected, I wrapped them in foil and put in a preheated cooler until ready for carving.

I made up a little mushroom sauce for it using a recipe from cdkitchen. The recipe was for a pan roasted tri tip, but I just used the sauce part and also added the items that went in with the meat (wine, butter, beef broth) and made adjustments to taste.

For side dish number one we used our favorite Brussels sprout recipe by steaming them until just tender in the morning then just before serving we reheated them by tossing in a butter, garlic, lemon sauce and topped with crumbled bacon.

Side two was leftover Orzo Salad Ala Velva, which we re-tossed with additional olive oil and added more feta and tomato - we intentionally saved it for this meal and it was still very good.

For side three, we had a Bev invention which we’ll call Easter Salad which was home grown lettuce tossed with Caesar dressing and parmesan then topped with regular deviled eggs, chunked pickled beets, and deviled pickled eggs (the eggs spent about a day soaking in the beet juice).  Bev just mixes her egg filling until it tastes right, but this time it wasn't tangy enough (wrong vinegar) so she addedd some green tomato relish which I didn't care for it in the plain ones, but worked very well in the deviled ones - a suprise as I'm not a sweet relish fan.

And finally there were homemade yeast rolls.  Here’s my plate and the table.

For dessert, Bev made her mom's famous sweet rolls, which are made using her regular bread dough which is rolled out and topped with sugar, cinnamon, and chopped pecans.  She then rolled them up, slices into rolls, and allowed to raise.  After baking she topped them with a new Paula Deen icing recipe (Bev used half of this recipe shown) and she thought these may have been her best ever - they got rave reviews from our guests.

Glaze Ala Paula Deen

4 tablespoons butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3-6 tablespoons of hot water

Mix butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Add hot water 1 tablespoon at a time until the glaze reaches desired consistency. Spread over slightly cooled rolls.

They were gone before I got a photo and I intended to take several more meal shots but got too busy with cooking and socializing - just having too must fun - I may need a designated photographer.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Blackened Crappie Ala Dave

Larry