Failed adventures in roast beef

Hosting a dinner for a couple of friends isn’t terribly hard, but it does require some preparation.

For instance, this Saturday I decided to test out a recipe that I wanted to make for two friends coming over this coming Friday. We have an awesome night of board games, dinner and hanging out planned.

The recipe is called Sirloin Roast Wrapped in Bacon. How can you go wrong with such a recipe? Roast beef? Good. Bacon? Awesome.

So, Joe and I went out and I bought all the ingredients we needed and I have to admit, as I was preparing the roast – slathering on the Dijon mustard, carefully wrapping the roast with bacon (the kind with 25% less salt too – I am considerate of my guest’s arteries) – I felt a surge of as yet unearned pride. There I was, making a meal that would say: “I am an adult. I can host a successful dinner. I am awesome.” A montage played through my head: my guest’s eyes rolling up in their heads in ecstasy as they took the first bite. A ringing of wine glasses as they toasted my prowess in the kitchen. Admiring and envious looks.

Yes, I do have quite the imagination.

I slid the roast into the oven, marveling at my own handiwork and within 30 minutes, I could smell bacon and a hint of the Dijon mustard in the air. I congratulated myself; if the smell was anything to go by, this was going to be great.

Fast-forward to nearly 2 hours later.

The timer on the oven has buzzed; I open the oven door and when the fog clears from my glasses – there she is: the bacon wrapped roast. I break off a tiny piece of crisp bacon. It is perfect.

With great care, I remove the roast from the pan. I take out most of the toothpicks I used to hold some of the bacon and cut in with my sharpest knife and try a little of my masterpiece: it is not good.

The marbled fat that I somehow missed seeing when I purchased the meat is rubbery and disgusting. The Dijon mustard has added a sludgy texture that is reminiscent of flavourless mud. The bacon seems bland and a little soggy. The meat itself is dull – I might as well offer my guests waterlogged wood chips covered in filth and fat.

I have failed.

In fact, dinner was so bad that we ate almost nothing of it (while attempting to watch the movie Trick ‘r’ Treat which was nearly as bad as our dinner) and we tossed most of it straight into the garbage; it was that unsalvageable.

As I was washing the dishes, I saw the whole thing in a new and rather dismal light. I don’t even like Dijon mustard – it doesn’t belong on any food ever. I knew this and still used 1/3 of a jar on the roast. That bacon has 25% less salt – to hell with healthy arteries, everyone knows salt adds flavour! The toothpicks made the roast resemble Pinhead from the Hellraiser movies and it tasted gross!

My confidence in my cooking skills took a dive. My faith in the god-like abilities of bacon to make everything awesome wavered. I felt something like despair. I should have known that a recipe that came with the roasting rack might suck. I mean, it was a $14.00 rack for god’s sake. I doubt Gordon Ramsey would have clipped the it from the package and stuck it in his recipe box like I did.  I should also have known that buying a roast at your local Save On Foods might not be as good as say a butcher’s cut of roast. I might have been able to get the part of the cow that wasn’t riddled with fat if I’d gone to a butcher.

And then I remembered I had beer in the fridge.

So I had one, and I thought some more about my failed adventures in roast beef. Perhaps I wasn’t a failure after all.

I did learn the value of a good cut of meat and I did save my guests from having to eat a disgusting dinner (plus forcing them to choke it down politely because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings) – I hadn’t failed at all.

I just wasted some money and time and made my husband eat a crappy dinner…for the second night in a row…

And then I remembered I had beer in the fridge…