The Best Beef Marinade Ever

You’ll want to print out this Best Beef Marinade Ever and use it on any cut of beef.  But first, a recap of my weekend:

Ah, what a great weekend!  The weather was perfect, and it was a great balance of productive and relaxing.

My friend Alison texted me that “if you are bored . . .” that they were just hanging out in their yard.  They have the cutest little girls, even if they are a bit fiesty with each other. 😀  They have a horse, dogs, and chickens!  I hung out for a couple hours, we got caught up and then it was time to go home and grill . . . in 60 degree weather!  Thanks for texting me Alison – it was great to see you 😀

I haven’t done a full grocery shop this week, but I still have plenty of food to get me at least through Wednesday, so I am not too worried about it.  However, I did a $15 grocery shop to pick up this top round roast to grill.  I had a best beef marinade, but for some reason, the recipe is simply gone on that post – my friend Carrie (hey!) pointed it out, and I think it’s because I used an old recipe plug in that doesn’t exist anymore.

So I had to go back to the drawing board.

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon Worchestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoons steakhouse seasoning (such us Dak’s steakhouse)

Rummy was wondering where her plate was!  This top round roast is $3.49 a pound, works great on the grill low and slow.  This is also a great cut for beef stew braised in the oven.  It took 60 minutes to cook that roast.  If you don’t have a meat thermometer, you need to invest in one, you’ll never overcook meat again.  You also need to learn the temperature of the type of cook you want:

• 125 rare (pull at 115)
• 135 medium  rare (pull at 125)
• 145 medium (pull at 135)
• 150 medium well (pull at 140)
• 160 well done (don’t bother cooking beef to this temperature because you’ve just ruined it) 😛

The biggest mistake people make in grilling is pulling off meat at 125 because they want rare beef, but don’t take into consideration the residual heat that will rise an additional 10 degrees when you let the meat rest.  Second mistake:  cutting a roast too soon – I let my roast rest a minimum of 30 minutes, but 60 minutes is even better.  It lets all the juices redistribute in the roast and when you cut the meat, you’ll get all the juice in your meat, not your cutting board.

The best part is that I have beef all week for leftover dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  #winning

Sunday afternoon I headed to Oak Park to meet my sister for my Mom’s spring concert.

Always a great show – got to see my friend Laura and her Mom (hey Laura!)

The first picture was backlit, then we turned around and took more – and sadly there wasn’t a picture of all three of us that one of us didn’t have our eyes closed – sorry I cropped you out Jenn, but Mom will probably want to frame this one since I am her favorite.

After the concert, my Mom and I went out to dinner.   I have my friend Jacky to thank for posting about this restaurant – Autre Monde.  It was my third time eating there, and it’s always spectacular.

They first brought us this homemade bread with leek butter.  Holy balls was this delicious – I even ate some of the leeks which were very mild to my surprise.  Then they brought us a relish tray, like a traditional supper club.

We decided to split several things instead of each getting an entree.  We started out with shrimp cocktail with the best cocktail sauce I’ve ever had – very horseradishy, which I loved.

Next up?  Lobster mac n cheese, which everyone talks about how seafood and cheese should not be paired together but this was delicious.

I think my Mom and I will almost order fried green tomatoes if they are on the menu.  However, neither of us had ever seen this presentation before, with crab louie salad on top.  I loved the crunch of the watermelon radishes, the tender hard boiled eggs, and the sauce on top was surprisingly light.

And because we needed a vegetable, we ordered creamed spinach.  That was one of Tony’s favorite sides if we ever went to a steak house, until he developed a dairy intolerance, and if he ate this would literally have to get to a bathroom in less than 60 seconds 😛

It was a fun weekend, and so happy to be able to spend time with my Momma at dinner.  Love you Momma!

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I talked about my new journal that I got from Weight Watchers on Friday’s post.  I was able to swing by my local meeting Saturday morning because I wanted to pick up one for my sister to give to her yesterday, and then give one away on the blog today.  Just for fun, to enter the giveaway, let me know if you like creamed spinach or if you think it looks like baby barf.   You can leave your answer in the comments below.

I’ll pick a winner on tomorrow’s blog.  I love how you can customize it with all the stickers.  But pretty sure I’ll need to get more stickers at Hobby Lobby – Hannah can spend three hours in there no problem.  Good luck and make it a great day!