Roast Beef With winter Vegetables

The Recipe: Roast Beef with Cabbage, Squash, and Carrots from the November 2010 issue of Everyday Food.

The Substitutions: I used acorn squash instead of butternut.

The Verdict: Doesn't this roast look beautiful? Like seriously gorgeous. Oh, how looks can deceive. I have a confession to make: I can't roast meat to save my life. I don't think there's anything wrong with my oven, because my baked goods turn out fine, but I am really bad at judging the size of a cut of meat and adjusting cooking times. Maybe it's because I was a vegetarian until I was 25 and never learned how to cook meat from my mother. Maybe it's because I can never find the exact cut of meat in the grocery store that's called for in a recipe. Maybe I'm just dumb. I don't know.

Anyway, I cooked this sucker (which was only slightly heavier than the cut called for in the recipe, but admittedly thicker and rounder) for about a half hour longer than called for and it was still a bloodbath. Like, really rare. I realize this is not the fault of the recipe, but I do find Martha Stewart recipes often have ridiculously short cooking times. Anyway, it made for a bit of a dinner disaster.

What we were able to eat (at a late hour) was not bad, though. These vegetables were quite tasty, though it was a little heavy on the cabbage. Not a bad recipe. If you know how to cook a roast, that is.