Day 193

I had another all beef day yesterday. I was first hungry at noon and had a hamburger bowl. Dinner at 6:30 was a chuck roast.

It was one of the best roasts I have ever had. I usually don't like roast because it was always dry and overdone (sorry K). Trying to keep it from being overdone only resulted in it being too chewy. This one came out perfect - pink and flavorful. It wasn't falling off the bone tender but wasn't chewy. It actually tasted like a steak would instead of the usual cardboard.

I had read about cooking roasts by cooking them on high for a half hour and then shutting the stove off and leaving it in the oven for several hours, cooking in the residual heat. That method wouldn't work for us, though, because we have a gas stove and they don't hold the heat as long. However, we do have a cast iron dutch oven that I bought for K several years ago and we have never used. It occurred to me that it would do nicely to help hold the residual heat.

To prepare the roast, I first turned the oven to "Warm". While waiting for that to warm up, I took our nicely marbled chuck roast (about 4 pounds) and browned it in a little tallow in the dutch oven on the stove. I did sprinkle it with a little creole seasoning (spices and salt) before browning it, but that probably isn't necessary. After browning the meat, I stuck our digital thermometer into it, closed the lid and stuck the hot pan into the now warm oven.

I set the thermometer to go off at 155°. It took about 2 and half hours to get to that temp. After it went off, I pulled the dutch oven out of the oven and left it covered on the stove top to let it rest. After about 20 minutes, the temp had risen to 163°, so I took it out and sliced it up. I ate mine dipped in some of the juice that had cooked out and it was amazing. My oldest son loved it too. K and my youngest aren't big fans of roast but said it was good.

Despite pigging out on roast last night, I was down another .2 pounds this morning, to another new low of 176.2 pounds. I am really amazed that I am still losing at a good rate, despite being pretty close to a healthy weight. I expected it to slow to a crawl by this point.