Thistle Hill Farm communicates with its friends, neighbors and customers (generally everyone falls in all three groups) not only with this website and blog, but with Facebook and an occasional newsletter to those who ask to be put on our mailing list to be told when beef and pork is about to become available.<\/p>\n
The other day, our daughter-in-law, Barbara, cooked a roast for her family using Thistle Hill beef, of course.\u00a0 It was a big success and she emailed us the recipe and we shared it with our meat customers.\u00a0 The recipe provoked quite a bit of interest so we thought we’d bring it over to our Blog.\u00a0As you know, in the summer we tend not to put roasts in our packages but now that it is Fall (well, almost) we will resume including top round and eye-of-round.<\/p>\n
Grass bed beef can be a bit tricky to prepare….easy to\u00a0overcook….and that’s why we recommended coating all cuts with olive\u00a0oil….turning after two minutes and then baking to desired\u00a0doneness…usually not more than a few minutes more. Roasts can be seared but generally need to be slow-cooked….and\u00a0that’s where our Barbara comes in.\u00a0 She and grandson David prepared a\u00a0top round roast just last night and her family was ecstatic.\u00a0 She’s a\u00a0good cook so she generally “wings” everything.\u00a0 But here’s her email:<\/p>\n
I am on my way out\u00a0but before I forget what I did last night here is the\u00a0recipe I kind of made up as I went along.<\/em><\/p>\n 2 cups water<\/em><\/p>\n 2 beef bouillon cubes (Knorr)<\/em><\/p>\n 1 medium sweet onion sliced<\/em><\/p>\n 6 cloves garlic whole<\/em><\/p>\n 1- 2 cup baby carrots<\/em><\/p>\n 2 small potatoes cubed<\/em><\/p>\n Thistle Hill top round roast<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0olive oil<\/em><\/p>\n garlic salt<\/em><\/p>\n fresh basil<\/em><\/p>\n 1\/4 cup Marsala wine<\/em><\/p>\n I browned the garlic and onion in a dutch oven on the stove, added the\u00a0beef on med high heat to brown on both sides. Added the carrots and\u00a0potatoes. Add the water and bouillon and wine- turning meat every 20\u00a0minutes.\u00a0 Turn the heat to simmer after 45 mins (adding more water if\u00a0necessary).\u00a0 After 2 hours turn heat to medium and add the basil,\u00a0garlic salt.\u00a0 David used that broth to make the gravy (which we kept separate) from a Knorr beef gravy packet.\u00a0 By the time I got home, it was almost like a shredded meat but not as stringy and it melted in your mouth, but still had a nice texture.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oh and the potatoes did not keep form, they kind of mushed into the broth, which we liked, carrots were fine.<\/em><\/p>\n As I said, we circulated the recipe to our meat customers and that triggered some further ideas.\u00a0 From Sue B:<\/p>\n Another trick which we have used on Venison ~ after cooking as you like (as per recipe) inject some Knorrs Au Jus, heated & dissolved, and still warm\/med hot. (I have access to needles and syringes from my veterinarian husband, but there are “meat injectors”)\u00a0 allow to rest before carving ~ the hotter the Au Jus is the more it will “cook” the beef, so keep this in mind.<\/em><\/p>\n And then from Linda M:<\/p>\n Thanks so much for the recipe.\u00a0 I’ll have to try that.\u00a0 I usually use recipes developed by Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten of FoodNetwork fame).\u00a0 Her rib roast is perfect every time!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I’ll let you know how we like this recipe.\u00a0 One thing I’ve found gives the roast a much richer flavor and better depth is to use sherry in addition to Marsala or a good dry red wine and to use beef demi-glace.\u00a0 That’s a concentrate of beef stock that has the consistency of dark brown molasses but lends a wonderful beefiness to the dish.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thistle Hill Farm communicates with its friends, neighbors and customers (generally everyone falls in all three groups) not only with this website and blog, but with Facebook and an occasional newsletter to those who ask to be put on our mailing list to be told when beef and pork is about to become available. The other day, our daughter-in-law, Barbara, cooked a roast for her family using Thistle Hill beef, of course.\u00a0 It was a big success and she emailed us the recipe and we shared it with our meat customers.\u00a0 The recipe provoked quite a bit of interest so we thought we’d bring it over to our Blog.\u00a0As you know, in the summer we tend not to put roasts in our packages but now that it is Fall (well, almost) we will resume including top round and eye-of-round. Grass bed beef can be a bit tricky to prepare….easy to\u00a0overcook….and that’s why we recommended coating all cuts with olive\u00a0oil….turning after two minutes and then baking to desired\u00a0doneness…usually not more than a few minutes more. Roasts can be seared but generally need to be slow-cooked….and\u00a0that’s where our Barbara comes in.\u00a0 She and grandson David prepared a\u00a0top round roast just last night and her family was ecstatic.\u00a0 She’s a\u00a0good cook so she generally “wings” everything.\u00a0 But here’s her email: I am on my way out\u00a0but before I forget what I did last night here is the\u00a0recipe I kind of made up as I went along. 2 cups water 2 beef bouillon cubes (Knorr) 1 medium sweet onion sliced 6 cloves garlic whole 1- 2 cup baby carrots 2 small potatoes cubed Thistle Hill top round roast \u00a0olive oil garlic salt fresh basil 1\/4 cup Marsala wine I browned the garlic and onion in a dutch oven on the stove, added the\u00a0beef on med high heat to brown on both sides. Added the carrots and\u00a0potatoes. Add the water and bouillon and wine- turning meat every 20\u00a0minutes.\u00a0 Turn the heat to simmer after 45 mins (adding more water if\u00a0necessary).\u00a0 After 2 hours turn heat to medium and add the basil,\u00a0garlic salt.\u00a0 David used that broth to make the gravy (which we kept separate) from a Knorr beef gravy packet.\u00a0 By the time I got home, it was almost like a shredded meat but not as stringy and it melted in your mouth, but still had a nice texture.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oh and the potatoes did not keep form, they kind of mushed into the broth, which we liked, carrots were fine. As I said, we circulated the recipe to our meat customers and that triggered some further ideas.\u00a0 From Sue B: Another trick which we have used on Venison ~ after cooking as you like (as per recipe) inject some Knorrs Au Jus, heated & dissolved, and still warm\/med hot. (I have access to needles and syringes from my veterinarian husband, but there are “meat injectors”)\u00a0 allow to rest before carving ~ the hotter the Au Jus is the more it will “cook” the beef, so keep this in mind. And then from Linda M: Thanks so much for the recipe.\u00a0 I’ll have to try that.\u00a0 I usually use recipes developed by Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten of FoodNetwork fame).\u00a0 Her rib roast is perfect every time!\u00a0 I’ll let you know how we like this recipe.\u00a0 One thing I’ve found gives the roast a much richer flavor and better depth is to use sherry in addition to Marsala or a good dry red wine and to use beef demi-glace.\u00a0 That’s a concentrate of beef stock that has the consistency of dark brown molasses but lends a wonderful beefiness to the dish. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1140"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1142,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions\/1142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}