Day 272 - Beef Sirloin Tri-Tip Kansas City BBQ Flavored Recipe

Here they are in the store, just waiting to be selected to go home with someone

David cooked this for us – we usually split cooking duties with him in charge of meat (if we have it) and me doing the vegetables and salad. 

Here he is while still at TJ's, saying "MEEEEEAAATTTT!"

For me, this beef was nice and tender, and the taste was good, but there was sooo much F-A-T.   I got globs of fat with almost every bite.  Perhaps we were supposed to be smart enough to shave that off before plating it, but it seems like if we HAD cut it off we would have had one tiny chunk of meat left for dinner…   Maybe the fact that it had so much FAT is what made it nice and tender.   (As you might surmise here, I am not the meat expert in our house.  I could do fine on a vegetarian diet but my fun partner likes red meat once in a while.)

As for the BBQ sauce on it, it was okay but a little sweet for me.  I preferred the bites that were not drenched in that sauce.

The meat master slicing this up

For David – he was disappointed in the lack of sauce.  (See, sometimes we have opposite opinions on stuff.)  He thought the sauce was too “on just the outside of the beef” and not enough sauce in general.  He felt the meat was not “juicy and succulent” but not too tough.  He thought if he cut off the fat before serving, it might have been “less unpleasant”.

Wait til it is on the PLATES please, David...

This beef cannot hold a candle to the filet mignon roast we served months ago for the Trader Joe’s dinner party, that’s for damn sure.  filet mignon roast here   I don’t feel the need to buy this Tri-Tip KC BBQ recipe again. 

David gives this one a 3.5 and I concur.

Price – $7.99 lb

Rating – 3.5

Day 114 - Filet Mignon Roast

Holy kamole!!!!  We had this for the first time last night.  Color me a happy eater!!

Let me explain – last night we hosted our first ever (maybe last?) TRADER JOE’S DINNER PARTY!  David’s cousin and her husband were in town visiting and we wanted to get together with them, so we invited them (Sheila and Paul) along with my lovely in-laws Greg and Joan over for dinner.  But instead of just having a “regular dinner party” I made it a TRADER JOE’S DINNER PARTY!  This meant everything served was from none other than, you guessed it, Trader Joe’s J.  Sheila and Joan follow the blog (and I think Paul might be kept up to date by Sheila) so they were keen to join in the fun! 

Here are the Trader Joe's ingredients BEFORE THE PARTY 

I made “score sheets” for everyone and they were elegantly displayed on the table (as elegant as stapled together pieces of paper can be).  Everyone was asked to rate the items listed (Joan counted – there were 26 different items to be served!) and write any comments they wished.  I have collected all the score sheets but HAVE NOT READ THEM yet.  I will write my review of the roast here first so my opinion is not “tainted” by the other reviews, but I will be sure to share their comments and scores, too!

I LOVED THIS ROAST.  We chose it for the dinner party because, as a household of two people, something as big as this roast is not normally practical for us.  But since we would have 6 people at the table, it looked like a perfect size!  And it was – we have a bit of it left over (which we are grateful for and plan to eat later today!).

David with the tasty roast in the store

It was super easy to cook – David roasted it in the oven following the instructions on the package.  He lifted it off the bottom of the baking dish using the little metal rack that came with our old, inherited crock pot.  The roast comes pre-seasoned, but he added a bit of olive oil before putting it in the oven.  When it was done cooking, he followed a tip a co-worker had given him to cover the pan with foil, then with TOWELS to keep the warmth and moisture in.  Boy howdy did that work well!  We didn’t cut into that roast for another 45 minutes after it came out of the oven but it was still warm, juicy, and dellllicious! 

The spices on it are just right – nice and peppery.  In my opinion Trader Joe’s hit a home run with this item.  It is more expensive than we would normally spring for, but hey, it was a DINNER PARTY and after tasting it, I realize that in this case, the cost is totally worth it! 

Yes, more expensive than some dinners but WORTH IT

If I were rating it myself, I would give it a 5.  But because of the dinner party set-up, I am going to now peek at the other guests’ ratings and I will average them together for the final number at the end of the review.

Here are some other diner’s comments on this filet mignon roast:

·         “Tender and peppery but a bit dry.”

·         “Tender, flavor is elegantly beefy.”

·         “Very tasty rub – lots of pepper flavor.”

·         “Wonderful texture; great flavor.”

·         “Instructions for cooking were accurate.  Roast was moist and flavorful.  Easy to prepare for dinner with guests.”

Price - $17.49 lb.

Rating (6 ratings averaged together) – 4.75