The Crazy Cook

In the kitchen this morning, I had to giggle. I told Vince . . anyone watching me cook would think I’m crazy. He said “Anyone watching you do anything would think you’re crazy!” He was joking . . don’t get mad at Vince.

I had a thick sliced top round roast that was defrosted. I had the butcher slice a huge top round roast into about 3/4″ thick slices, divided it up into several packages and I use it for making Rouladen. I no longer have the luxury of digging around to find what I want to cook because we have to get two freezers emptied soon so I’m just grabbing what’s next on the shelf and finding something to do with it. So, I had the sliced roast. I knew Addie wasn’t going to want Rouladen and I knew I didn’t want to spend the time it takes to make it so I cut the sliced beef into bite size pieces, seasoned it and browned it in a cast iron Dutch oven. From there, it went into the pressure cooker for about half an hour.

While the meat was in the pressure cooker, I made the gravy pretty much like I did for the hamburger steaks yesterday. I added cut up carrots, then when the pressure cooker was done, I poured the meat back into the Dutch oven, with the carrots and gravy and let it simmer til the gravy was thick again.

While all that was going on, I cut up two packages of mushrooms, sauteed them in a separate skillet. Addie will not eat mushrooms so I’ll dip her beef, carrots and gravy out before adding the mushrooms to the pot.

Once the mushrooms were sauteed, I added garlic, then took out the mushrooms that will go into the pot of beef.

To the skillet, I added a bit more garlic, heavy cream, a bit of flour and parmesan cheese.

On tomorrow’s menu, we have spaghetti and meatballs, which has Vince and Addie so excited. Since I don’t like marinara, I made myself a creamy mushroom pasta sauce.

Now, everything is mostly cooked for today and tomorrow. Addie goes home tomorrow and we’ll have enough hamburger steak and gravy, beef tips with carrots and mushrooms and spaghetti and meatballs to last us the rest of the week. I may end up adding some potatoes and small pasta, along with a can or two of tomatoes to the beef tips and making that into beef stew.

So, yes, I’ve been in the kitchen a while this morning but for the rest of the week, it should be a piece of cake. When I make meatballs, I make about 10 dozen and freeze them so I think I’ll take out the last two packages for tomorrow so sometime soon, I need to make more meatballs but that’s not happening this week.