Guest Recipe from Jim Testa - slow cooked, expired, blade steaks

Jim Testa - longtime (35 years and counting!) editor of the NJ/NY undie music bible Jerseybeat.com is my oldest living friend. We went to Rutgers College together when Springsteen was playing the Commuter Student Center for 50 cents. He's my son's godfather, has been to all my weddings (was best man at the first!) etc. He's been a supporter of this blog all along, has hit me with various challenges I've posted and now here's a recipe of his:

"I went to the supermarket and they had packages of blade steak on sale, plus a few were about to expire so they were an additional $2 off. So I got a couple pounds of steak (not really a staple on my current budget) for about two bucks.

I go home and google it, and read that blade steak is super tough and really only good if slow braised. But I didn't want to go back to the store, and I was out of celery and carrots.
I had a half bulb of fennel, an onion that was about to go south, and some leftover sundried tomatoes.
So I whizzed that into a paste in the food processor.
Browned the meat well with Salt & Pepper, then took the meat out and browned the paste. Added a little tomato paste
put the meat back in, added a couple of bay leaves, and let the thing cook low and slow for 3 hours.

The result was a delicious pot roast that was soft as butter. The sun drieds added a piquant umami flavor to the sauce. Not bad! And great served with horseradish mashed potatoes.