Steak, Wine, and Mushrooms

As some of you may know, I often watch The Chew when I am at home.  I love the mix of talk-show banter and cooking goodies.  My favorite co-host is Michael Symon, because he isn’t afraid of butter, steak, or bacon.  A few weeks ago he did a Pan Roasted Steak with a Red Wine Sauce.  John has started making his own wine, so I decided to make this recipe with his wine!  He even built a wine rack!

Since then, he has filled a few more rows up with his white wine.  It is pretty good, too!  I’m so proud of him.

Anyway, back to the food.  I started by defrosting some steaks, seasoning them with salt and pepper.

I cooked them in our enameled cast iron pan in tallow… MMMM!

When they were seared and cooked I added a few cups of sliced up mushrooms to the pan.

When they started to cook, I added in sliced spring onions and garlic.

Once they were browning nicely, I added John’s delicious red wine, oregano, and red wine vinegar.

I took the steak out, let the sauce start to reduce and added butter.

It finished reducing the sauce while the steaks rested.

While all of this was going on, I also cleaned all the random leafy greens we had in the fridge.  Beet greens, rainbow chard, carrot tops…

I had another pan going that I used to saute onions and garlic for the greens.

Together, the steak with mushroom sauce and garlicky greens were a perfect match!

This post was shared on Pennywise Platter!

Cheesey Beaney Chili Pie

I have had this recipe saved since January and I am just now getting to it.  Does anyone else ever do that?  Every so often I really need to go through all the recipes I have marked to try and make a few!  This one was pretty easy and verrrrrry tasty.

First, I had to make chopped meat.  I put about 3/4 lb of meat in the food processor…

…and chopped it!

While it was in the food processor, I melted tallow in our cast iron skillet.

I browned the meat and set it aside.

Since the skillet still had tallow in it, I added in onions, garlic powder, cumin, salt, and red pepper flakes.

When the onions were soft, I added the beef back in, along with 3 cups of red beans, a smidge of tomato paste, and 1 1/2 cups of diced tomatoes.

When all of the flavors were combined, I added one HUGE shredded potato.

After a sprinkling of salt, I added lots and lots of shredded cheese.  I used up all of the bits and pieces of cheese that were in the fridge.

 It baked in the oven for 20 minutes at 400*, and then we threw it under the broiler to brown it up.  

I loved almost everything about it.  The only thing I would tweak would be the potatoes.  I didn’t like the way they cooked up.  I think next time I would add some fat to the potatoes so they crisped up a bit more.  All in all, I would say it was a success!

This post was shared on Real Food Wednesday!

Macaroni Monday is Cancelled!

Well, for this week, at least.  Instead, I am sharing the delicious steak tacos we made for Cinco de Mayo.  I am all about having special meals to celebrate all year ’round.  In fact, I really need to make a list of all the crazy food-related holidays so I can make fun recipes to celebrate.  Remind me to add that to my to-do list!

Anyway, at the last minute, John and I decided to make steak tacos for dinner.  About 40 minutes later we were sitting down enjoying them.  If I had already made the tortillas, or if we purchased them, it probably would have been ready in about 20 minutes.  Is that fast enough for ya?

To start off, I made tortillas.  They require almost no active time, just about 30 minutes of resting time for the dough.  They are impossibly easy to make, and pretty fun, too!  Every single time I make them, I ask myself why I don’t do it more often.  I have no idea.

 While the tortillas rested and were cooked, John seasoned some steaks with garlic, salt, pepper, cumim, red pepper flakes, and oregano.  He grilled them and I sliced them against the grain of the meat so they would be easy to bite into when in taco form. 

 While all of this was going on, John and I prepped the fillings.  We used things we had around the house, like lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and peppers.

When everything was complete, we mad the tacos!

Not too shabby for an unplanned taco night!

This post was shared with The Hearth and Soul Bloghop!

I’m back… with steak salad!

Hi!  Long time, no see!  After spending the last 2 months snuggling on this little face…

I’m back!  

I’ll be posting again as regularly as I can, starting today with a quick steak and kale salad I threw together the other night. 

I sliced up some steak thinly and brushed it with garlic olive oil.  Then, I threw it on the cast iron grill pan.

While it cooked, I threw together Russian Kale, olive oil, lemon juice and salt.  I meant to take a picture, but I got distracted.

Yeah, I am going to be shamelessly adding baby pictures…

Anyway, once the steak was cooked, but rare, I threw it on top of the kale salad.  So quick and easy!

This post was shared on the Hearth and Soup Hop.

Beef Stock with Lots of Gelatin

Did I ever post about the marrow I made?  No, I didn’t think so.  Well, a while back I made some delish roasted marrow bones with crusty bread and lemony salad.  I saved the bones to make beef stock.  Of course, in the meantime, I got a little distracted.  While I was cleaning out the freezer, I stumbled upon the bones and decided to make the stock.  

First, I put the bones into a huuuuuge pot.

I added in frozen veggie scraps.

I filled the pot up with water and cooked it for ages.  By ages, I mean a few days, on and off.  Then, I took the jar of gelatin-ey broth stuff from rendering tallow out of the fridge.  

It was so jiggly!  I poured/dumped it into the pot and let it melt in.  It would be a shame to let all that good gelatin go to waste. 

Once it was melted in, I strained the stock and froze it.  I can’t wait to start using it!!

This post was shared on Real Food Wednesday, Your Green Resource, Pennywise Platter, and Simple Lives Thursday!