Grilled Eye Of Round With Peas And Carrots & Congrats Philly

When we moved to South Jersey in 1962, I became one of the long suffering fans of the Phillys and Eagles and even though my enthusiasm for them has long since waned, I was happy to see them play such a good game to win the Super Bowl - I'm usually a fan of the underdog as well.  I even stayed up awake for the whole game.

When Cindy came over the next night she wanted to watch the half-time show that we had recorded.  I don't generally care for the commercials (Super Bowl or others) and we didn't watch the halftime show so I watched it with Cindy.  The following comments will likely show my age but what I saw in the show was Justin Timberlake and others jumping around to noise that I assume was supposed to be music and he displayed a very mediocre singing voice - however much he was paid, it was way too much - critique over :-)

Bev bought a packer cut whole eye of round a while back and it has been wet-aging in the fridge for about a month waiting to make it onto the meal schedule – while I’m in a cooking mood, I have about two weeks of meals planned out to use the stuff we have in the freezer and try out some recipes I’ve been saving.

When it comes to grilled meat, my go-to source is Chris over at Nibble Me This and for this meal, I choose his Rotisserie Garlic Roast Beef Wraps and I sided it with peas and carrots.  So let’s begin with the beef using Chris’ recipe shown below and be sure to check his blog for some great how-to pics.

Rotisserie Garlic Roast Beef – Slightly adapted from Nibble Me This

Ingredients:

4 lb Certified Angus Beef eye of round (Larry used a ?# select piece of round as we wanted leftovers)

1 tablespoon kosher salt

2 cups beef broth

For the paste

2 heads garlic, cloves peeled

1/4 cup mustard

1/4 cup high temperature oil (avocado, grapeseed, canola, etc)

1/4 cup coarse chopped onion

1 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions:

1. Make the paste.  Place the paste ingredients in a food processor or blender and pulse until you get a paste consistency.

2. Prep the beef.  Trim any excess fat off of the eye of round. Score the meat (making small slices on the exterior). Season all over with the salt.  Securely place the beef on the rotisserie skewer rod.  Slather the garlic paste all over the beef.  Let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.

3. Turn on the infrared rotisserie burner to high and preheat the grill.

4. Place a pan with 2 cups beef broth under the meat to collect any juices.

5. Place the rotisserie rod into the motor and bracket on the grill.

6. Lower the burner to med, close the lid, and cook until the roast reaches an internal temperature of 125F for Larry ( Chris went to 130F).  Check around 110F and increase burner to high if the roast needs more of a crust. 

7. Remove the roast from the grill, take it off of the rotisserie rod, tent, and allow it to rest on a cutting board for 15 minutes. 

Because of this grade and cut of beef, I was pretty sure we would need some type of sauce and since we like mushrooms, I once again turned to Chris for his Baby Bella Au Jus and made it while the roast was resting – I normally prefer gravy, but we’re all watching our calories.

Baby Bella Au Jus

Beef stock (Au Jus) from catch pan

1 tbsp butter

3/4 cup Baby Bella mushrooms, sliced

2 T green onion, sliced (I forgot them)

While the meat is resting, saute the mushrooms in butter for about 5 minutes.  Add in the Au Jus and the green onions, bring to a simmer for a minute or two, and then taste and adjust seasoning.

Since my plan was to use the leftover meat and broth for Italian beef, I used an entire 8oz package of mushrooms and all of the pan juices for the au jus

Thinly slice the roast beef and ladle the baby bell-au-jus over it.

Mom made peas and carrots pretty often when I was growing up and while I like them, we seem to never make them, but Pam’s recipe for Garlic Butter Roasted Carrots from her For The Love Of Cooking Blog gave me an idea for our side dish – check her blog for some good shots of them.  I made the carrots per her recipe below:

Ingredients:

1 tbsp butter

1 large clove of garlic, minced

1-2 tsp olive oil

Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste

2 cups of carrots, peeled & sliced into coins

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

2. Melt the butter with the minced garlic in the microwave for 25-30 seconds; set aside to allow the flavors to mingle.

3. Toss the carrots with a drizzle of olive oil and season with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste; toss to coat evenly.

4. Spread out on the baking sheet and place into the oven for 10 minutes.

5. Flip the carrots and continue roasting for 10 minutes. (Larry didn't do this)

6. Drizzle the carrots with the garlic butter and toss to coat evenly (Larry put them in a bowl to do this).

7. Continue roasting another 5 minutes or until the carrots are fork tender and a bit caramelized.

8. Remove from the oven and place in a serving bowl stir in the pan with the peas.

While the carrots were cooking I cooked three cups of frozen peas in three cups of boiling water until they were warmed through and tender, then poured them into a colander to drain.

I returned them to the pan over low heat and stirred in 2 tbsp of salted butter, a shake of garlic powder, and a shake of black pepper.

I stirred in the carrots, and I also stirred in a few cooked (frozen) pearl onions to see how we liked them, tasted, and adjusted the seasonings as needed.  Frozen pearl onions have been hard to find but finally found Bird's Eye at Publix in Knoxville.

We served everything from the kitchen by the plate and here is a shot of mine.

I pulled the roast at an internal temp of 127F (just over an hour) and it looked perfect and was as good as can be expected from a select grade piece of meat.  It's top choice from now on for these leaner cuts of beef.  I really liked the veggies but made the mistake of cooking the carrots a little too long - got busy with the other stuff.  All-in-all, a good weeknight meal without a lot of effort.  We'll now use the left over meat for a couple of other meals and I would make the peas and carrots again.

Happy Birthday to my "groundhog" son.  I'm not sure what this says but all three of my kids were born in a two week period about nine months from spring.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

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

Larry

2/2/18 Meal Date