Currently cooking from The Complete Cook’s Country TV Show Cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen.

I’ve always thought that roast beef was just another name for pot roast. It never occurred to me that roast beef was its own dish until I saw this recipe. And after making this, I have an elegant, delicious Sunday dinner to add to my repertoire.

This is really two recipes in one. There’s the method for roasting the beef, but there’s also a recipe for brown gravy. This isn’t a 30-minute dinner, but most of the time is hands-off while the beef is roasting. You’ll need to plan a little in advance, as the beef needs to sit, covered with salt, for at least an hour in the fridge before roasting.

Prior to roasting, you brown the beef on all sides, then transfer to a low oven (275 degrees) and let it bake, until it reaches the desired temperature. In the meantime, using the same pan you browned the beef in, you build the gravy. You start out by cooking mushrooms, onions, carrots and celery until browned, followed by tomato paste, garlic and a bit of flour. The pot is deglazed with wine and beef broth, and the liquid is simmered until it reduces and thickened. The gravy is strained and kept warm until the beef is done.

My biggest problem is that the beef was too rare at the suggested temperature. I ended up putting the roast back in the oven for another 90 minutes or so. Even cooked longer, the meat stayed juicy and tender. The leftovers (and there were at least four more meals’ worth for Bryan and I) were just as good as the first meal. The recipe makes a lot of gravy, and I actually ended up throwing the last little bit out. Bryan said the gravy was almost as good as his mother’s brown gravy.

Currently cooking from The Complete Cook’s Country TV Show Cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen.

I don’t make much Mexican food at home. Within about a three-mile radius of our house, we have approximately 59 Mexican restaurants or food trucks. Why should I dirty up the kitchen, leave a mound of dishes for Bryan to wash and end up with just okay food, when I can get the good stuff for less than $10 and a five minute drive? In my world, that’s a no-brainer.

Unfortunately, I happened to mention to Bryan that this cookbook includes a Mexican chapter and that the beef enchiladas looked pretty good. Next thing I know, I’m shopping for enchilada ingredients and watching the dishes pile up in the sink. This isn’t a 30-minute meal. Or even a 60-minute meal. This is a multistep dish that takes a good three hours from start to finish. But you end up with meltingly tender beef rolled up in corn tortillas and topped with a flavorful sauce and gooey cheese. I’m glad I tried the dish, but I’m not sure I’ll be making it again anytime soon.

The recipe starts out by having you braise top blade steaks in onions, garlic and canned tomato sauce until they fall apart. Then you remove and shred the meat and strain the liquid. The shredded meat gets mixed with cheese, cilantro and canned jalapenos, then rolled into corn tortillas. The braising liquid is spread over the tortillas and the whole thing is topped off with more cheese. The enchiladas are baked for about 25 minutes, covered by foil. At the end of the baking time, you remove the foil and let the cheese brown slightly.

I couldn’t find top blade steaks, so I ended up using a roast that I cut into pieces. I think I left the meat in too large of pieces, because my beef took almost an hour longer to get tender. I also only ended up with 10 enchiladas instead of 12 as the recipe stated. Other than those two things, the recipe delivered a great dish. It was tasty, and it tasted authentic. Even the leftovers reheated nicely, although the corn tortillas got a little soggy.

This is one of those dishes that I saw them make on television. At the time, I remember thinking to myself that it seemed like a lot of work for enchiladas. Now having made the recipe, I think I was mostly right. This dish is a lot of work, but if you are willing to do that work, you’ll be rewarded with a great meal. And lots of dishes.

Currently cooking from The Complete Cook’s Country TV Show Cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen.

Remember those frozen TV dinners? I only recall eating them once or twice, but as someone who didn’t like their food to touch (and still doesn’t), I loved the segregated trays they came in. The food I don’t remember so much about, except that the dessert was usually cherry something. Cobbler? Pie? Cake? Whatever it was, I’d be willing to bet that salisbury steak was the entree in those dinners. And that’s pretty much the total sum of my exposure to salisbury steak. I might have eaten it, a couple of times, years ago. So I didn’t know what to expect with this recipe. It was loaded with mushrooms and onions and hamburgers and gravy; all things I like and Bryan loves, so I figured we’d be good.

And it was good. Really good. The meat was tender and had good flavor, and the gravy was rich and tasty. I only had one problem, which I explain below.

The recipe starts off by having you whisk together potato flakes and milk. Then you add in hamburger, salt and pepper, mix everything up and form patties. This was the only place I encountered problems. My reconstituted mashed potatoes clumped together and refused to mix in with the hamburger. I mixed it as well as I could, but in the finished dish, there were discernible chunks of potato in the meat. Not a big deal, just a little strange.

After a short rest in the fridge, you brown the meat, then soften and brown onions and mushrooms, whisk in some flour and tomato paste, and then finish it off by adding beef broth and port (or dry sherry which is what I used). The hamburger finishes cooking in the simmering sauce, which thickens and reduces to a rich brown gravy. I served the salisbury steak with garlic mashed potatoes (also from this book) and green peas. For dessert, I opted for chocolate pudding. No mystery cherry dessert here.