I was beginning to wonder if my next blog post was ever going to happen and, if it happened, whether there would be photos to share along with it or not.  My laptop has been broken or in the repair shop for almost a year.  It worked beautifully the first few days after it was delivered into my eagerly awaiting hands but then it refused to upload the photos from my phone.

Learning all about Role Playing Game graphics and creating them at the same time to help my husband with a contract for his business, thanks to every available graphics person around the world bailing on him after agreeing to join the team, has me up into the wee hours of the morning most nights, and all night some nights, taking advantage of a quiet house to make headway on the project.

Food blogging had been back-burnered this last week for these reasons.  But then, wa la, poof, ta da…I plugged my phone into my laptop to charge it and my computer asked me if I wanted to import photos.  Yes!  I pounced on it and back-burnered everything else long enough to write a bit.

Fortunately, I have taken the time to cook during this last frantic rush before Hubby’s next deadline , running from the stove to the laptop, so there’s plenty to blog.  During this time, I’ve also enjoyed a lovely date night dinner of brandied chicken livers at my favorite local restaurant that I could rave about in a blog post and enjoyed a quick respite at an area laser tag joint with my little family for a change of scenery.  A weekend chocolate extravaganza centered around a neuroscience study on chocolate and other stimulants the boys and I focused on for a few days kept Hubby and I awake and focused on the project through the weekend. Yes, plenty to blog about before I put my nose back to the grindstone and enter the little alternate world of the characters and places I have been creating.

I actually dreamed in pixels last night.   No joke.  And when the alarm woke us this morning I was half awake and started worrying about the grass seed we planted in the fall coming up more sparsely than I’d anticipated.  In my mind I took my virtual paintbrush and filled in the grass along our white pine tree line on the property.  Crazy stuff rattling around in this head of mine!  Cracks me up.

But in general I am loving my new “career field” and have decided to go all the way with it.  It merges so well with my obsessively creative nature that I am hoping that soon I will have learned enough to start bidding on outside graphics jobs.  We’ll see.  Blogging, home schooling, cooking, graphics design, all from home, doesn’t sound like a bad life to me.  Not at all.  In fact, it fits in very nicely with our long time goal of Hubby working from home solely on his business, which takes us one step closer to becoming that crazy home school family in the movie RV who travels around the country in their awesome retro red bus (Would I have anything else?) with the Star Trek horn (Would my husband and boys have anything else?)

This one pot wonder got Sunday dinner on the table with little effort from me and made this little farmhouse smell amazing while it cooked, which drove the cat absolutely bonkers.  I’m not fond of London Broil.  Pretty useless unless it’s cooked to death and then, still, not so tender.  When it’s buy one get one free, however, I put it in the shopping basket and depend upon my creativity and a heavy-bottomed pot to make the most of a good deal.

Ingredients:

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt & pepper

2 1/2 lb. London Broil

1/2 a medium fennel bulb

1 c. halved button mushrooms

1 large Vidalia onion, large dice

1 c. celery cut into large pieces

3 whole peeled cloves  of garlic

3 c. red potato wedges

1 c. cabernet sauvignon

2 c. water

Fennel greens

2 bay leaves

2 sprigs rosemary

1 1/2 tsp. salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves

Method:

Heat oil in a braising pan or stock pot over high heat.  Season the roast on all sides with salt and pepper.  Sear the meat on all sides to brown.

Remove the meat from the pan.  Add the vegetables and brown them lightly.

Deglaze the pan with the wine.  Add the meat back to the pan along with the water, herbs, fennel greens, and spices.  Simmer for 2 hours, covered.  Transfer the meat and vegetables to a serving platter.

Simmer the liquid in the pan until it’s reduced by half and thickened.

Thinly slice the roast on the bias.  Drizzle the reduced pan juices over each serving of meat and vegetables.

Of course this could all be dumped into the Crock Pot and cooked all day long or overnight, but it makes me sad to imagine how different the end result would be.  😉

Update:  I’ve never updated a post a mere two minutes after publishing it, but I just saw this article.  Though I have cooked “London Broil” all different ways over the years, and my husband will only eat well-done beef which is the reason I take sale London Broil and cook it to death, this article says it will be tough if overcooked.  I have never had a tender piece of what is sold in the meat department labeled “London Broil” no matter how gently or thoroughly I’ve cooked it, but I may keep experimenting if it’s still on sale the next time I do my shopping.