Roast a Roast

It's my five year anniversary! You know what that means, right? It means lots and lots of good food. Celebrations give us permission to eat the way we'd like to eat all of the time-trying new possibly pricey restaurants, and making new meals with exciting ingredients and more time consuming and involved. Brian and I have gender typical food preferences. He likes very meaty meals, and I like vegetable heavy meals with lots of sauces and herbs. I love to try new things, so it's mostly me making the compromises on what we eat, and tonight especially we made a Brian-friendly meal: a rosemary crusted roast with sauteed sugar snap peas and salads.

3/4 cup panko crumbs

1/4 cup grated Romano cheese

2 cloves minced garlic

2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary

1 tablespoon olive oil

pinch salt and pepper

2 tablespoons or so of Dijon mustard

2 pound beef roast of your choice. (I think this would be rocking with lamb too. You are looking for some nice marbling through the meat because you are roasting it and you want it to be juicy. Sirloin roast or a rib roast would be good. Eye-of-round or top round will be okay if it's good quality but otherwise might be a little dry. The more regular and even the roast is shaped, the better it will be, so it isn't rare in the thick part and overcooked in the thin parts.)

Preheat oven to 375. Heat a medium skillet to rippin' hot. Put down a vegetable oil with a high smoke point, like sunflower oil or canola oil (olive oil will smoke if you do the oh so scientific heat of rippin' hot) and brown the roast on all sides...get some nice color going. Mix up the top 6 ingredients in a bowl while the roast rests and gets cooler so you can touch it without crying for your mommy. Whatever you do, DO NOT wash that skillet yet. We are going to use all of those nice brown little bits for a dipping sauce. Brush the roast with the Dijon mustard and pat your bread crumb mixture on to make the crust part of the crusted roast. If you have a roasting pan, pop it in the rack and into the oven. If you don't, you're going to have to deal with the fact that you just aren't going to get crust on the bottom of the roast. Put it in a cake pan and into the oven. Bake until it is between 125 and 130 degrees. You have to rest roasts for around 10 minutes and during those 10 minutes, it will continue to cook and you will get to 140 to 145 degrees. Beware the carryover! I used to forget and pull the roast out when it was medium rare and it would carryover to medium well! Noooooooooo! It was such a let down to cut into what I thought was going to be one of those perfect bright red roasts covered by a layer or delicious brown crust and instead I got a greyish-pink roast...but it was still covered by delicious brown crust.

Now to get a crack at that dipping sauce. I do so love dipping sauces. I love condiments of almost any type. French fries are vehicles for ketchup, mayo on chicken sandwiches should be so thick it's dripping off the sides. I make so much sauce for Mongolian beef that it's almost like a soup and I eat it with a spoon. YUM.

2 heaping tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 shot of Cognac

1/4 cup of half and half

Wisk all of those ingredients into the pan drippings over medium heat to combine. Taste for needed salt or pepper. Okay kids, a little safety lesson. We all know that alcohol is highly flammable right? Right. So when you add the Cognac, turn OFF the flame until it's mixed into the other ingredients and the proof will be lower and less likely to flame up. Also, have a large lid available and always have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. Duh. Make sure to scrap all of the drippings off of the pan into the sauce. This sauce is beyond good. I pour it on green beans, sugar snap peas, sop it up with bread... This is also the sauce I use to pour over plain steaks...I mean, how could it not be good? It's got cream, mustard, and alcohol. Done and done.

The sugar snap peas are so easy and versatile. This is one of those dishes that you make over and over because of how delicious and easy it is.

1 pound or so of sugar snap peas

3 cloves garlic diced

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a medium sized skillet over medium high heat. Add the sugar snap peas and saute until almost fork tender. Add the garlic and toss to combine and cook until fork tender. Season with salt and pepper. I KNOW! So easy! I also do this with fresh green beans. Yum yum yum.

Brian and I have very different salad styles. Brian always has the same salad: greens, Romano cheese, olive oil, salt and pepper. I like to have more going on on my salads. My favorite salad is as follows: greens, sliced strawberries, goat cheese, candied pecans, and balsamic vinaigrette.

So there you have it, my anniversary meal. We served it with a lovely bottle of spicy Spanish red wine. Sangria has been my downfall many an evening and now I've discovered the wine! Oh you naughty Spaniards!