Top Notch Recipe on a Low Budget

Jean from Illinois sent us her beef recipe with an interesting story :)

Jean wrote:

I've got to tell you and the girls about my new
recipe.

Recently I bought a small covered oval roaster made by
Graniteware, at my local Ace Hardware store. I had to
buy the rack (with handles) for it directly from the
manufacturer.  Before I bought the rack, I cooked a
chicken in it and was very happy.

Today, I used the rack for the first time.
I like to buy food at Dominick's in Lincolnwood. When
meat gets close to its sell-or-freeze-by date, they
stick on coupons adding lots off, e.g. an additional
30% off. It's a great way for this food-stamp
recipient to get great food cheaper. If I had enough
money & freezer space, I'd buy all the beef so
discounted, just to make sure it wasn't thrown out.
Jewel doesn't do this.

This is what I bought for my project, a true impulse
recipe idea:

1. beef chuck/top blade steak/boneless/.86 lb.
2. beef chuck/cross rib steak/boneless/.60 lb.
3. beef loin/top sirloin steak/boneless/1.12 lb.
1 onion

The beef pieces were all fairly thin, not the classic
chunky roast. Didn't matter.

Procedure:

0. slice the onion
1. spray bottom of roaster with some non-stick cooking
spray.
2. add 1/2 cup of water
3. put rack in
4. place biggest piece of meat on rack
5. sprinkle seasonings on top of meat
6. place onion slice(s) on top of meat
7. place another piece or pieces of meat on top of
onion slices
8. add seasonings and another set of onion slices as
before
9. place another piece of meat on top of onions
10. add seasonings as before

Pre-heat oven to 325F.

When oven is pre-heated, cover the roaster and put it
in oven carefully.

Check it later to make sure the top piece of meat
hasn't slid off onion - reposition if needed.
Cook for 2 hours.

Use handles to lift food out of roaster.
Pour off juice into separate container.
Etc.

I was super-pleased that the meat was more tender than
I expected. I just ate the top piece, because it's
obviously a 3-serving dish I made. This roaster is
made in several bigger sizes, so you can cook more at
once.

Although I surely made some correct choices in time
and temperature; the Graniteware covered roasters are
"the poor man's Dutch oven" without the thermal mass
of cast iron. It isn't just the speckled enamel that
makes Americans so fond of them!

I'm not telling which seasonings I used - a different
group for each layer of meat - because that's part of
the beauty of this recipe: you can choose your
seasonings, and also the vegetables to put in between
the layers of meat.

Normally I wouldn't offer Spatulatta a recipe, because
I'm a grownup and it's supposed to be the girls'
project. But, the opportunity to make all these
choices gives them plenty of room to be creative.
I've been buying meat nearing the sell-by date for a
long time, but never got this creative. Maybe in these
times when most people are trying to save money, it's
an opportunity to encourage cooks to venture
"off-label" in preparing meat. Cooked is cooked. If I
braised a steak and it came out tender, it's correctly
cooked!

As for the added expense of driving to Dominick's in
Lincolnwood (or Howard L station?) versus walking to
the Jewel, I can't fix that.