Good Morning!
Well, we didn't get to see the "big moon" because of clouds last night, but, maybe tonight? It's cloudy and cool right now, so I'm guessing no. At one point later in the afternoon yesterday, it was sunny and the moon was just rising. It did look bigger than normal, that's as close to seeing it as we'd get yesterday.
Last weekend we had a fun time in Richmond at the races despite the rain. Saturday night's race was boring and I really thought Tony Stewart was going to win. As usual, NASCAR called what we call a "phantom" caution changing the end of the race entirely. Fans were pissed, booing, and very unhappy. The Friday night race was good racing, so all was not lost. Here's something funny though. We arrived at the track on saturday with rain in the forecast. We sat in the parking lot for awhile, then decided to go in. Well, it began to rain as we were walking to the track. People were leaving as we were going in. It downpoured. We bought rain ponchos and found places to stand while waiting out the storm. We ate some "track" food, walked around, looked at the driver trailers and some of the exhibits, then decided to go back to the car. The rain finally stopped. As we're walking back, Alan says to me, "we did this wrong". I'm like "what???" He said, take a look...........as we were walking in, everyone was leaving. As we were leaving, everyone was walking back! So, a little bit of backwards never hurts sometimes!!!
Anyway, I had a London Broil in the freezer and didn't know what to do with it. So, I took out my handy, dandy, Lidia cookbook and voila! I figured it out! There is a wonderful recipe I've made before called Filetto alla Carbonade or Beef Filet with Wine Sauce. For this you're supposed to use a filet roast, but I only have London Broil. You can use what you want, the flavor is the same. Of course, I've made the recipe my own, here it is:
3 lbs beef roast
3 and 1/4 cups dry red wine
4 cups water
4 plump garlic cloves, smashed
1 large onion, quartered
1 to 2 carrots (about a cup), cut into 1/4" pieces
1 to 2 celery stalks (about a cup), cut into 1/4" pieces
1/2 cup loosely packed dried porcini mushrooms (about 1/2 oz)
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons salt
1 or more tablespoons olive oil
6 tablespoon butter, cut into chunks
1 teaspoon honey
In a 4 quart saucepan, combine the wine, water, veggies, 1/2 tsp salt, garlic, rosemary. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce to a steady stimmer. Cook for an hour or more, partly covered, until the sauce reduced by 1/2. Then with a sieve, strain the sauce into a bowl. With the veggies, smash them into the sieve, gleaning out their liquid and flavor. Rinse out the saucepan, return the liquid to the saucepan. Heat again, slowly, steadily until the sauce reduced in 1/2 again, adding 1/2 tsp of salt. Meanwhile, prepare your meat. Rub the meat with salt, a little olive oil. In a fry pan, brown the meat on all sides, cook about 15 mins or so (or less depending on how you like it). Make sure the meat gets brown and crusty on all sides. When the meat is done to your liking, remove it to a warm plate. Add the sauce to the meat skillet, bring it to a boil while scraping the brown bits from the bottom. Then add the butter chunks one at a time, stirring each one until melted, when that's done, do the same with the honey. The sauce makes about 1 1/4 cups when completed. For a filet roast, when you like your meat rare or medium rare, this is the perfect way to make this dish. However, when using a cheaper cut of meat, or NOT an expensive roast, this is what I do and it comes out just as wonderful:
As a variation, I cook the beef in the sauce itself. After the 1st reduction, I add the 1/2 tsp salt, but also drop the butter chunks and honey. I bring to a boil, then reduce the heat. While this is happening, I just brown my meat, then add my sauce to the frypan and let the meat and the sauce cook and reduce together, partly covered, tenderizing the meat and having all of the flavor.
Slice the meat, drizzle with the sauce to serve. This recipe is great with mashed or baked, smashed potatoes.
Enjoy!!!!!
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