Perilous Beef Sirloin Tips with Smoky Pepper Sauce

There are perils and pitfalls to trying a new recipe, and it can often spell disaster. I was prohibited during "Cooking with Alice" to try anything new, so I now have a backlog of recipes that I have torn from magazines (mostly while waiting at the orthodontist's office) that I am now plowing my way through. This one intrigued me because I will make anything that calls for roasted peppers. Oh, and beef. Beef and roasted peppers with barbecue sauce, yum! It turned out to be a winner and found itself added to a permanent page in my recipe book, while others are not so fortunate. I found only one omission in the instructions but have remedied that with a note to myself  for future use. The recipe itself also suggested serving the beef and peppers with couscous or mashed potatoes - I went with wide No-Yolk egg noodles (still watching the cholesterol post-Alice) and it was scrumptious, simple and delicious.

Oh course, when I think of disasters, I think of one thing: the Channel 7 4 o'clock movie theme weeks. Anyone growing up in Detroit during the 70s remembers the daily afternoon movie (no slight meant to Rita Bell or Bill Kennedy). They had Ape Week, Monster Week, but my personal favorite was always Disaster Week. The line up would always include The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, The Poseidon Adventure, Airport and it's sequels '75, '77 (not to be confused with Match Game '77) and the Concorde (this one I did not personally remember but my pop culture partner in crime Mark did). The basic plot was the same, only the location, be it a plane, skyscraper, cruise ship or the entire state of California changed. And, it seemed as if George Kennedy was in all of them, but that could just be my imagination. Anyway, there would be a mix of Hollywood stars (Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, Paul Newman) along with has-beens of the day (Shelly Winters, Ernest Borgnine) all struggling to survive some tragedy while surrounded by death and destruction. Ultimately, the plane lands, the ship is righted, the fire goes out and the ground stops shaking and we are reminded that there's got to be a morning after.

The Recipe:

1 1/2 lb beef sirloin tip steak
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 12 to 16 oz jar roasted red and/or yellow peppers
1/2 cup barbecue sauce

Trim meat and cut into 1 inch cubes; sprinkle with paprika. Drain and cut up peppers, reserving a 1/2 cup of the liquid (if necessary, add water to equal 1/2 cup). In a 12 inch skillet, heat oil over medium high heat. Add meat and brown. Remove from skillet (and drain off juices) and keep warm. Add peppers and liquid to the pan. Add the bbq sauce and cook uncovered  5 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently until sauce is slightly thickened. Return meat to pan, heat through. Serves 4.