I Found the Beef . . . But do I REALLY Want it?

Where's the beef? It's in my kitchen . . . in my refrigerator . . . not so much in my tummy.

In the wonderful world of experimentation, sometimes there are flaws. My hopes were high for my braised beef in red wine adventure in the kitchen yesterday. Perhaps too high. I can admit that. Hell, I can admit that because—and sometimes the truth hurts AND sucks—that chuck roast turned out, ehh, not so great.

No, let me not sugar coat this. Its time for full disclosure: Bleeck is the word. It was bitter. It was butt ugly. It was tough (tough?!? you say, after marinating for 24 hours? say it ain't so!). My dream was for the meat to simply fall apart at the mere presence of a knife and fork. Instead, it practically stood up and chuckled in the face of sharpness, as if to mockingly say "You cannot hurt me! I am indestructible."

This confounds me. I'm stumped because, normally, my braised beef turns out wonderfully (no, seriously . . . it does; you can ask my husband, Maarten; he'll confirm this with lip-smackin' delight). Perhaps it was the wine? Maybe the marinating process was too long, too much, too fierce? Or it could all just boil down to plain old human error.

In any event, it'll be a struggle to get through that hunk of meat. I never thought I'd be speaking so harshly about one of my own meals, but I have to be honest about this. It was bad.

So much for high hopes. I think I'll stick with drinking wine rather than cooking with it. But hey, we can't all be Julia Child (if you have Flash player, you might enjoy this visual presentation of the iconic cooking legend, "Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian"). Perhaps I'll just stick with what works successfully for me.

Braised Beef

Beef (works well with pot roast or beef brisket)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 small onion, diced
1 small green bell pepper, diced
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp minced garlic
@28 ozs. beef stock

Beef....yum.

Heat oil in a pot. Add beef and brown meat on all sides (about 7-10 minutes). Add diced onions, diced peppers and minced garlic and saute for about 3 minutes. Add beef stock and bay leaves. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 3-4 hours. (You can add potatoes and carrots to this recipe, but don't put these in the pot at the beginning of the cooking process, otherwise they'll turn to mush by the time the beef is finished cooking.)

(This recipe also works great with ox tails).