I'm stuffed! Please, no more food.

This holiday season has been one of the busiest I've ever had. With my families, my boyfriend's families, and friends' dinner parties, we had five (count them - five) Thanksgivings to go to this year. Add to the frantic schedule the fact that I didn't have much left over from my trip to the farmer's market last week, and you've got yourself a sticky situation. How could I make a large enough side dish with the little I had for even one of these parties? Reluctantly, I settled on making a late lunch this Sunday for Paul and myself. I had purchased a couple round cuts of beef at the market, eggs, and a couple heads of cabbage, so I could at least do that.

A round cut of beef is notoriously tough - so much so that people usually use it to make jerky! Alas, I didn't have enough to make tasty strips of portable meat, so I settled on making the meat as tender as possible. The following are my gentle instructions for beating the crap out of tough meat: After letting it thaw overnight, cut the meat on both sides with a criss-cross pattern; it should look sort of like a tic-tac-toe table. This maximizes the surface area so that the marinade can get to as much of the meat as possible. Then use a tenderizer (gee, I wonder where it got its name?) to beat the meat into submission. Not too hard, though - you don't want it to be too thin - but a short/light-handed beating will help, well, tenderize it. Marinate it in a concoction of soy sauce, lemon juice, pepper, garlic, and pineapple juice for at least six hours (I did mine overnight). When you're ready to eat, broil the meat for a minute or two on each side, and it's done! I served mine with a sunny-side up egg on top, and the meat was tender and juicy and flavorful. Nothing like a filet, but tasty nonetheless. :) On the side, we had a simple vinegar coleslaw. Here's the recipe:

Two heads of cabbage (make them two different colors to jazz it up a bit)
One large carrot
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. celery seed
1 tsp. mustard seed
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar

Shred vegetables and mix them together in a bowl. Combine all other ingredients in a separate bowl; pour over vegetable mixture. Refrigerate for 24 hours before serving.