The Eye Has It

I am a Pinterest addict. I blame my friend Melissa. She kept telling me about all the cool things she found on there. One day I just decided to take a look...(insert troll face here) and it was all down hill from there. However, it does offer some pretty awesome things. For instance, I found a link to this blog The Domestic Man and a post he wrote about cooking an Eye Round Roast.
I am not usually one for doing a roast. It's generally dinner for one in my home. But I do enjoy a nice roast and Eye Round beef is pretty cheap. Of course when I told my mother what I had bought, she did that vocal cringe thing she does and says, "That's going to be really tough." And I told her, "Maybe. Maybe not."
The blog post didn't offer so much a recipe, although I suppose we could call it that for giggles, it was mostly an MOP or Method of Prep. This roast isn't really about ingredients as it is about technique. It's a dry roast, at a very high temp (500 degrees F) for about 20 minutes and then...you turn the oven off.
No, really.
You turn the oven off and let the roast cook on with the residual heat, which means of course, you cannot open the oven. So I turned the oven off and after an hour I checked the roast. It was sitting at about 135 degrees. That's a good temp for a medium rare roast. So I pulled it out and let it rest.
I was a little sad that it didn't develop much of a sear on the outside, possibly because I don't trust my oven and didn't crank it all the way to 500. But it still came out quite nice. Not exactly prime rib (duh) and perhaps a bit chewy, but the flavor was good. Not bad for a $12 roast, right?

I guess even an old dog can learn a new trick. Provided the new trick has a pretty picture on Pinterest.

Angels Take Gastonia

Well you never know what a new year will bring.  This morning I was laid off for the first time ever. Not sure what to think.  Sales were off, so obviously the last one in is the first to go. Feels odd at the moment,  but I'm sure that panic will set in very soon. I have a paper bag all ready for the hyperventilation that is sure to follow.  But they say that no door closes but a window opens,  so I'm keeping my eyes open for the next good thing.

Don't blink.

In a garden, there's a girl who's waiting.  She's going to wait a long time,  so she's going to need a lot of hope. Go to her. Tell her good days are coming. Tell her this is the story of the Chef Amanda. And this is how it ends.

-borrowed from doctor who, angels take Manhattan