The Dark Days Challenge has 120+ participants from all over the U.S. doing the best we can to eat local during the winter months. Our challenge is to prepare at least one meal a week using only Sustainable, Organic, Local and Ethical (SOLE) ingredients, and then blog about it. Weekly recaps of the participant’s meals will be hosted by the fine folks at Not Dabbling In Normal every Sunday.
Last week I was hungry for a beef roast, so I cooked a lovely, lean 3 pound arm roast from Fischer Farms in nearby Jasper, IN. I roasted it in the oven for about two and a half hours, until it was fork tender. Then I served it up along with some of our Lacinato kale and turnips – two of our fall crops that have kept on trucking here in early January.
Beef roast, kale and turnips (click on any image to enlarge)
We got two meals from that beef roast, but that wasn’t all I had in mind for it. I took the meat off the bone, then simmered the bone in a stock pot along with some aromatic vegetables to make stock. I used the homemade stock to make vegetable beef soup. The frozen vegetables for the soup all came from our 2011 garden, including squash, cabbage, green beans, tomatoes and okra. I added the rest of the beef roast to the soup before serving.
vegetable beef soup
We got two more meals from the soup, plus we froze enough for two more servings. And that is why I call it the roast that kept on giving!