Hmmm… so, best-laid plans and all that…
Checking out the schedule for French Fridays with Dorie this week I was relieved to see that it was something I figured I’d be able to make in our makeshift kitchen in the South-West of France (for those of you wondering, yes, it’s our house and so I am a little more forgiving about the state of my favourite room right now because I know that soon it will actually have a kitchen in it, not just a sink, a table, a hotplate and a toaster oven. If this was an actual rental kitchen, I would not be so happy!). I was excited to find a tiny, tiny beef roast that I had planned on roasting one evening in preparation for lunch the following day in between (more) furniture building. I’d gathered all my ingredients and had everything ready to go.
We were just sitting down to an early-ish dinner when the lights started flickering. Our contractor had warned us that we would probably need the circuit breaker changed at some point but I was hoping for that to not need doing until we were gone and it was less important to actually have functioning electricity. And then the lights were not flickering anymore. Fortunately, Mr Neil made us bring a lot of flashlights etc… so we were good for light. We headed down to the basement to see if we couldn’t just flick the switch to restore power. Unfortunately not. I phoned EDF (Electricité de France) who sounded confused by my description of what the box looked like (turns out it was pretty old, so a bit of a collector’s item!) and who assured me that yes, they could help but not on a Sunday night. Call back tomorrow, they said.
So we opened another bottle of wine, listened to the radio, played Words with Friends, surfed furniture sites online (thankful for our fully charged iPads) and waited it out. But not before I had grabbed the beef and put it in the freezer, hoping it wouldn’t be too long before we had power again. I mean, really in the big scheme of things it wouldn’t have been a big deal to go and buy more beef but I was so chuffed with my tiny, perfect piece of beef that I would have been sad to throw it out.
It turns out I didn’t need to because once we phoned EDF the next day, they were at the house and had changed the box in under 2 hours. Efficiency where I certainly was not expecting it! But my “next day” beef plans had to change after all that. The beef needed cooking that night and we needed something to eat so it was more a case of “next hour” beef salad sandwiches with all the right condiments: mayonnaise, cornichons, tiny pickled onions and mustard.
(a little less pink than Mr Neil was hoping for but hey, you do what you can when you are roasting a piece of beef in a toaster oven in between putting together 4000 – only a slight exaggeration – pieces of furniture)
I always love a good roast beef sandwich and this was no exception. So, an adventure, a tasty dish and lots of new vocabulary learned (electricity-related but also, tende de tranche which was the excellent cut I chose). It was a good week!
Get Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for Next-Day Beef Salad on page 260 of Around my French Table.
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Ugh, sorry about the disruption to your dinner plans! Bill loves his beef very rare, too, and he actually enjoyed his salad!
This is a great technique/ recipe to keep up your sleeve, huh?
This was PERFECT sustenance in the middle of lots of working with things out of boxes, hex keys, and the lack of a power drill.
Notwithstanding it was midday, a lovely red would have been ideal. Alas, as Mardi said, we finished two bottles the night before, so had none at hand! (I know: shocker.) So we made do with a can of 1664 between us…. 😉
Actually we ate this for an early dinner (clearly all that work has you confused!). But no, we didn’t drink wine with this!
I thought I went rogue… you win!
Not at all – it was “next day” beef so….
Friday night dinner conumdrum solved!
Leftovers transformed into a salad, especially in this heat, are an excellent idea.
LOL well our situation was not quite so warm, especially with no electricity!
Its hard to feel sorry for your disrupted dinner plans Mardi knowing where you are. But I’ll try. In the meantime you got to eat well as a consolation. I really enjoyed this one.
Well, while it’s lovely being in France, it will be lovelier when the house is finished! And yes, we eat well there!
A true next day beef… yes, your setting is hard to feel for… toaster oven beef, that’s a new one for me.
Well we’re “en pleine construction” so it was hardly a luxury vacation and we really didn’t see much apart from the insides of hardware stores!
Hey, no one can complain about a great roast beef sandwich. Glad to know that you are rolling with the punches whether it be house renovation, toaster oven challenges or being chuffed about your tiny meat purchase. I am not so sure about what “chuffed” means but love the word and will probably fit it into one of my future blogs if you give me permission. Love hearing about your house and am still very excited for you. .
Chuffed = extremely pleased!
After all that aggravation, I’m glad you enjoyed it all.
Well not so much aggravations, just a little bit unexpected!
I had no idea that you could roast beef in a toaster oven. Good to know. I’m glad this recipe had a happy ending, power outage and all. And I like the sandwich idea. These ingredients all went so well together.
Toaster ovens these days have come a long way!
Hey, who doesn’t like wine for dinner? But it really sounds like you are rolling with the challenges! I am glad you got it done after all, it is a nice dish
We actually didn’t have wine for dinner – we had eaten dinner and I was going to cook the beef for the next day so when the power went out, we figured we might need another glass of wine to, you know, cope!
Mardi, what a story!! I can completely understand how it wouldn’t be so bad when it’s your own home that you’re renovating!! You’ll have another delightful dinner-party story when you get back to North America!
And while I agree that just a bit more pink would be ideal – that roast beef looks quite delicious! and great for you to make the adjustments based on circumstances!!!
Thanks – I did pretty well considering what I had to work with, I think!
Well, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Sounds like you dealt with your kitchen limitations quite well.
Absolutely! No kitchen forces you to be very creative indeed!
wow! thats great that you were able to get the electricity problem fixed so quickly! It took longer than that for us in England, almost two weeks when ours went out!
Your salad looks great!
Actually we made sandwiches with these ingredients!
The salad had all of the components of a great roast beef sandwich, so I don’t think you went all that rogue, after all. 😉 So glad you were able to get your electricity dealt with so quickly.
Absolutely! It’s the intention and ingredients that count!
Your roast beef looks remarkably perfect for being cooked in a toaster oven, Mardi! I’m impressed that you got your electricity worked on so quickly! Enjoy your time in France!
Thanks, sadly have been home for a couple of weeks now 🙁
This salad would have been terrific as a sandwich. I am glad that they fixed your power quickly – it would have been a bummer otherwise.
I cannot even imagine!