Roast Beef and Vegetables

I recently was browsing my Betty Crocker cookbooks for something that I could make in a short period of time but make it look like I spent all day. I came across the recipe for Roast Beef. Betty Crocker says to look at the meat chart and roast your meat until it reaches the temperature on the chart in a 400 degree oven. The recipe is literally 2 steps long and has no further information except that it is "fast" and "low fat." I had also recalled reading a recipe for Roast Beef in one of my magazines possibly last year for roast beef and learning that it only takes an hour. I couldn't believe it so I put it out of mind.

Joey did the grocery shopping this week and suggested we do one of those one-bag weeks that they feature in Food Everyday. one of Martha Stewart's magazine. The idea is that you buy only a couple of ingredients and rely on staples and then make something one day and use the leftovers to make something different another day. Joey thought it would fun for us to make roast beef and then French Dip Sandwiches later. I thought that sounded like a great idea!

My favorite place to look for recipes is Martha Stewart's website. It turns out, all her recipes aren't crazy-hard, but are actually made for the home cook. This dish was so quick and easy! I got home from work around 5:30pm. The most time consuming part was peeling all the shallots, but if you wanted you could do those in advance. Then I cut up some carrots and potatoes and threw it all in the oven. It really did take about 15 minutes to prep and about 50 minutes to cook. That may sound long to you, except if you think about what you might have done instead of cooking--in the long run you would probably save time and money. If instead, Joey and I decided to go out for dinner. The whole affair, if we went to a sit down restaurant would probably take more than an hour and be much more expensive.

Roast Beef with Vegetables
1 1/2 pounds eye-of-round beef roast, tied (mine came tied)
1 1/2 pounds small red new potatoes halved or 3-4 medium sized yellow potatoes quartered
5 carrots, cut into chunks about the same size as the potatoes
1 lb shallots, peeled and halved
2 T olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
1. Cut potatoes, shallots and carrots. Place them on a jellyroll pan with edges and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.
2. Move vegetables to the short edges of pan and place the roast in the middle. Rub the roast in the oil on the pan. Salt and Pepper generously.
3. Place the pan in the middle of the oven and roast for 40-50 minutes until a thermometer entered in the thickest part of the meat registers 130 for medium rare. (mine took about 50 minutes and then ended up being 135 which was actually still pretty rare).
4. Slice and serve with vegetables