Beef Tenderloin with Porcini and Pepper Sauce

Beef Tenderloin with Porcini and Pepper Sauce

Once again I am dashing off to another trip to the coast, this time to our RV river property for four days. I made this a couple of weeks ago, with HUGE THANKS to Conor Bofin of the delightfully funny and delicious food blog, One Man’s Meat. I take zero credit for this recipe. In fact I copied his recipe so exactly (other than having a more inferior steak and wine than his) that I will simply link you directly to his site for it.

Beef Tenderloins and Oregon Porcini Mushrooms ~ The tenderloins weren’t near the quality we got with last year’s cow

The pictures are my own on this page, but his photos are a feast for the eyes! I served this with my Smashed Roasted Little Potatoes and asparagus. PLEASE do hop over to his site and read his witty writing, delightful photography, and mouth-watering recipes. This particular recipe is not only drool-worthy, but worth a good chuckle. You won’t be disappointed!

Peppercorns and Mushrooms ~ I clearly need work on my fine chopping skills

Even if you don’t eat meat, his way with words will be sure to delight you. DO read the photo captions too. They are particularly clever. Enjoy!

Click for the recipe here ——> The Truth about Fillet Steak with Porcini and Pepper Sauce

 

Spinach and Feta Cheese Steak Rollups

Spinach and Feta Steak Rollups

How on earth does my mind come up with something like this? Just out of the blue! I guess I’m just getting used to “making do” with what I have in the house as I loathe shopping of any kind. Just ask my family. I really do hate shopping.

But what I do really like is coming up with some crazy idea for dinner and think yeah, the family will like this. But then when the family not only likes it, they LOVE it, I’m pretty darned happy. Even before this was finished cooking, my hubby said, “You know we can always order pizza if it isn’t good.” See, he DID have his doubts!

But doubt no more.

Oh shoot, a back story to the salted steak first. (Many of  my long-term readers know hubby is on a low-salt diet.) And a video, but you don’t have to watch it.

So somehow I came across a poor man’s video guide on the interwebz to make any tough meat tender. So, here is the video (sorry if you have to watch an ad first):

Watch here —> Poor Man’s Filet Mignon

And I also happened to watch it with hubby a few days before I made this. THEN (even with a little less now than a quarter cow in the freezer) I picked up some thin-sliced eye of round from the 50% off bin. I am a sucker for meat deals. Of course I froze it immediately. When I told hubby I brought home some store-bought beef and that it was a very tough cut, he actually got excited instead of rolling his eyes. He wanted us to test out this meat tenderizing trick.

Now, let me present to you my riff on a beef rollup stuffed with all kinds of yum. I would have liked to grill this, but it was freezing outside. Make note to cook this again on the grill when the weather is better. And yes, it came out very tender, more so than I expected! (And p.s. the family loved these!)

Spinach and Feta Steak Rollups

For the steak glaze:

Splash of olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons red wine
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 sprig fresh rosemary, or 1 teaspoon dried leaves
1/2 cup beef broth, preferably homemade

For the steak rollups

3/4 pound thin-sliced eye of round or any other thin-sliced steak (8 to 10 slices)
Coarse sea salt
8 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
3 ounces crumble Feta cheese
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed lemon juice
Ground black pepper, to taste
2 teaspoons grapeseed oil or other high-heat tolerant neutral oil

Salting the Beef

If you have a tough cut of beef, follow the method in the video. But if you don’t want to watch it, basically add some course sea salt to the top of the steak and let it sit on the counter for 1 hour for every inch. This steak was so thin we did less than 10 minutes. But even in that short time I could see the steak sweating out and breaking up the fibers! Then you rinse the steak thoroughly of the salt. Pat dry and set aside ready for the stuffing.

But meanwhile you can make the steak glaze.

Making the Steak Glaze

Add a splash of oil to a saucepan or skillet over medium heat and cook garlic until fragrant, just a minute or so. Add the rest of the glaze ingredients and cook and stir until reduced by about half. Remove rosemary sprig if not using dried. Take off heat and set aside.

Spinach and Feta Cheese Stuffing

Next, take your thawed and squeezed-dry spinach (you did that already, right?) and add to a bowl along with the Feta cheese, red pepper flakes, and lemon juice and mix until thoroughly combined.

Glazed Steaks

Brush the steak slices with the glaze with a pastry brush, (if you used dried rosemary, don’t worry as it just gets stuck in the brush anyways).

Adding the Spinach Stuffing

Grind a bunch of black pepper over the steaks. Top the steak slices evenly with the spinach mixture. Roll up and secure with twine or toothpicks. I found twine to be convenient since I wasn’t grilling.

Brush any remaining steak glaze you have over the rollups. Grind more black pepper over them again, to taste. I am kind of a ground black pepper freak.

Rolled and Stuffed Steaks

Heat a large cast iron or heavy bottom skillet over very high heat with two teaspoons of neutral high-heat oil. With tongs, add the rollups (in batches if needed) to the skillet and cook on all sides until browned. Just a minute or two on each side, rolling often. Remove to a plate and serve with a side vegetable of choice. I chose steamed asparagus. I suppose some kind of bread could be in order but I’m trying to lose weight. 🙂 Happy dining!

Spinach and Feta Steak Rollups

 

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Incredible Carne Guisada!

This is a reblog from a couple of years ago, but it is definitely one worth sharing again. (Plus it gave me a chance to add the handy-dandy printable PDF of the recipe at the bottom.) I assembled the ingredients early this morning before heading out to watch Sunday morning football and have some grub at a local sports bar. The house is smelling wonderful and I can’t wait to dig into it later this evening. I hope all my readers had a wonderful Christmas and will have a safe and enjoyable New Year!

Incredible Carne Guisada

This dish is SERIOUSLY amazing!!! Using a subjective adjective in my blog title along with an exclamation point already breaks a couple of my self-imposed posting rules. And there I just broke two more with capital letters and a triple exclamation point in the first sentence. But I can’t help it. This Carne Guisada is Just. That. Good. We are talking lick your bowl good. We are talking Get Outta Here that good. I cannot stress enough how much I loved this!

So now that I got all that off my chest, it’s time to start talking about the dish itself. I wanted Mexican food the other day, but wanted something different — something I’d never made before. So I went to my near and dear cookbook The Homesick Texan Cookbook by Lisa Fain, who always draws me into her recipes with her stories and photos that make everything in there look so gosh-darned good. This particular recipe caught my eye, and is the basis for what I ended up with. It’s a stew-like dish, served with soft tortillas, or you can dip into it with tortilla chips like an appetizer. I mixed it up quite a bit from hers but she provided me the foundation from which to build on. That sounded very scholarly. The recipe and food is not, I guarantee! I really wish I had doubled this batch, because there was not near enough leftover for my liking. I wanted more, more, more the next day for my lunch.

Carne Guisada
Adapted from Lisa Fain The Homesick Texan

1 1/2 pounds cut of beef roast or steak, any kind, cut into 1-inch cubes
Mrs. Dash Table Blend, or salt, to taste
Flour to dust over beef, about a tablespoon or so
Ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped (I used half a yellow and half a red)
1/2 large jalapeno, seeded and diced small
1/2 serrano pepper, seeded and diced small
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
3 Roma tomatoes, chopped
2 small potatoes, any kind, chopped
1 bay leaf
Handful of chopped cilantro
1/2 cup homemade or low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup dark beer, or sub with more chicken broth
Flour tortillas, warmed before serving
More cilantro, for serving

Hot and Mild Peppers and Onions

I had a rather large, lonely New York Sirloin steak in the freezer, which I deboned to get a pound of meat, and a meager 1/2 pound of boneless beef ribs in the freezer, so used those too. The recipe called for beef chuck or bottom round, but it’s all beef and you cook the heck out of it so the cut is unimportant. Season the beef cubes with Mrs. Dash (or salt) and pepper, then lightly dust all around with flour. Heat the oil in a cast iron or heavy-bottomed skillet to medium-high heat, then add the beef, in batches. You don’t want to crowd it or it won’t brown properly. Cook until it’s browned on all sides. Transfer each batch to a crock pot and set on high heat. Reduce the skillet heat to medium and add the chopped onions, peppers, garlic and spices. Cook until the garlic becomes fragrant, just a few minutes or so, as you don’t want to burn it. Add a skosh more oil, if needed.

Carne Guisada Ready for Liquids

Now add the mixture to the beef in the crock pot, then the tomatoes, potatoes (adding some potato was pretty outlandish, but hey, it worked!), bay leaf, and chopped cilantro. Pour in the chicken broth and beer, if using. The darkest beer I had in the house at the time was an amber ale, but you can sub with chicken broth if you don’t have any. (Yes, I did drink the rest of the beer bottle. Waste not, want not!) Cover and cook on high for three or four hours, then reduce to low for a couple of more hours, or until ready to eat. If you started this prep earlier in the day, then you can cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. The longer the better. When it’s time to eat, warm up those tortillas in a hot skillet, add a mess of the Carne Guisada to a bowl, then start digging in, slathering and slopping up all the yummy juices with the tortillas. You won’t be disappointed. And of course go back for seconds and thirds. I did.

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Carne Guisada

Cheese Steak Hoagies

Cheese Steak Hoagie

Well this post is long overdue! I made these cheesy-gooey sandwiches a day or so before moving out of my parent’s condo we were using as our temporary home during the remodel of our new house. While the ingredients in this are simple, it does use several pots and pans for all the steps. You could minimize the mess by re-using the same skillet between cooking the various fillings for this lovely sandwich. It also helps to slice everything up ahead of time.

Sliced and Grated Cheese Steak Ingredients

The basis for this recipe is courtesy of Bobby Flay over at Food Network. His original recipe also had mushrooms and used spicy peppers in lieu of the sweet peppers, but my version made all family members satisfied. OH! And buy fresh hoagie rolls for this, they make all the difference!

Cheese Steak Hoagies
Adapted from Philly Cheese Steak by Bobby Flay at Food Network

1 to 1.5 pounds boneless beef loin steaks
Caramelized Onions, recipe below
Sauteed Peppers, recipe below
Provolone Cheese Sauce, recipe below
Sauteed Steak Strips, recipe below
Soft fresh hoagie rolls, split 3/4 open

Freeze the steak for about 45 minutes before slicing it. It will slice super thin very easily if you do this step first. While the steak is in the freezer, prepare the rest of the ingredients. (I prepped the steak earlier in the day, but you don’t have to do that.)

Caramelizing the Onions

Caramelized Onions
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon grapeseed or other heat tolerant oil
1 large sweet onion, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
Ground black pepper and salt, to taste

Heat butter and oil in a large skillet over medium to medium low heat. Add the onions and season, to taste. Cook slowly until golden brown and caramelized, stirring occasionally, approximately 30 to 40 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the peppers and cheese sauce.

Cooking the Onions and Peppers

Sauteed Peppers
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
Ground black pepper and Mrs. Dash or salt, to taste

Add the oil to a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the peppers and seasonings and cook until soft, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. When done, remove to a plate or bowl, cover, and set aside.

Provolone Cheese Sauce
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon flour
1 1/4 cups milk, heated
3/4 cup grated Provolone cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Ground black pepper, to taste

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Now slowly whisk in the warm milk, stirring constantly until thickened, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and whisk in the two cheeses until melted and combined. Season with pepper, to taste. Cover to keep warm, and set aside. If needed, you can warm it back up over low heat later.

Cooking the Steak and Cheese Sauce

Sauteed Steak Strips
Partially frozen steaks, sliced very thin
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
Ground black pepper, to taste
Salt or Mrs. Dash, to taste

Final Assembly
Heat the skillet you used for the onions over high heat; no need to wipe out! Toss the steak strips with the oil and seasonings, then add to the skillet. Cook for about one minute per side or until done to your liking.

Place a hoagie roll on each plate, then fill with steak strips, onions, peppers, and top with cheese sauce. Open mouth wide!

 

 

Steak and Pork Pot Pie

Steak and Pork Pot Pie

After a busy and fun (OK, awesome!) weekend out of town, I’m finally getting around to cooking and blogging again! My husband had grilled up some pork and steaks over the weekend and I was faced with grilled leftover meat and not a lot of ideas for what to do with it.

When I opened the freezer to look for options, I spied a frozen pie crust and had an “AHA!” moment. Who said you can’t make pot pie with grilled steak or pork, huh? And with the meat already cooked, it became a simple and delicious dinner idea. I did not use the “Holy Trinity” with celery since my daughter does not eat celery (even though I cook with it all of the time), but I added peas for both color and taste. Two thumbs up from the fam, too! Here is what I did:

Steak and Pork Pot Pie

Steak and Pork Pot Pie

4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup baby carrots, chopped
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 small potato, peeled and cubed
1/4 cup flour
2 cups homemade or low-sodium beef broth
Ground black pepper, to taste
Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb, or salt, to taste
1 sprig of fresh thyme, leaves stripped and minced (or a pinch dried)
1/4 cup milk
1 pound leftover cooked steak and/or pork, cubed (about 2 cups)
1/2 cup frozen petite peas
1 frozen pie crust, thawed
1 egg, beaten with a little water

Grilled Beef and Pork

In a large skillet, melt the butter and add the carrots, onion, and potato. Cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes. Add the flour, seasonings, and thyme and stir until mixed into the butter.  Add the beef broth, then turn up heat to medium, stirring constantly until it thickens and begins to simmer. Turn back down to medium-low and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the milk and stir to combine. Last, mix in the meat and peas, then turn off heat.

Steak and Pork Pot Pie Filling

Pour into a 1.5 quart casserole (or large deep pie dish — I don’t happen to own one like that). Preheat oven to 375 degrees, meanwhile letting the mixture cool for about 20 minutes.  Top with the thawed pie crust and crimp around edges to seal. Brush on egg wash all over crust, then cut a few slits on top for venting. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until crust is golden. Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes before serving. Dee-lish!

Steak and Pork Pot Pie

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

 

 

 

Paul’s Not-Street Tacos

Paul’s Not-Street Tacos

I kidded my husband about these. He said he was making “street tacos” for dinner the other night, but in reality they weren’t really street tacos because  they had black refried beans, gaucamole, and Cotijo cheese in them instead of just cilantro and onion. HOWEVER, they were very delicious all the same. I probably gave him too much of a hard time since he’s been cooking for the past two weeks while I have been putting in a lot of hours on a very demanding project at my work. That being said, I have had no time to pull the recipe from him for this, so instead will just let you enjoy the photos and let your imagination figure it out this time. The steak meat was delicious and tender, his homemade guacamole was fantastic, and his refried black beans had bacon in them! Perhaps I will have a chance to post the recipe at a later date (but don’t hold me to that!)

Speaking of a later date, I’ll be wrapping up my part of the project late Friday, and Saturday we (meaning ME!) will be taking a much-needed break and heading to fish and crab and read books and relax for a week on the river at the coast. So I will “see” you on the flip side. Enjoy your Labor Day Weekend next week!

Paul’s Not-Street Tacos, Up Close and Personal

Grilled Steak and Artichoke Salad

Is it toasty hot where you live? It sure is here! Here is a nice main dish salad for you that I made last summer. We’ll be making this again soon!

anotherfoodieblogger

Here is a main dish steak salad that will appease even the heartiest of appetites. Temperatures are still toasty here and I wanted to concoct a cool summer salad that would be filling enough for dinner. I used a thin-sliced top round, which is not as tender as flank steak, but marinating the meat helped tenderize it. I was going to make a homemade vinaigrette, but by the time I finished grilling, chopping, and dicing I decided store-bought dressing would suffice.

Steak Marinade

1/2 pound thin-sliced steak
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1 lime
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon minced garlic
Black pepper to taste

Place the steak in a quart Ziploc baggie. Whisk the rest of the ingredients together and pour over the steak. Seal bag and let marinate for several hours or overnight. Take out and let come to room temperature…

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Tarragon Chive Lemon Butter on Grilled Steaks

Tarragon Chive Lemon Butter on Steak

My parents have made it back to town for the summer to escape the sizzling heat of Texas, only to bring their sizzling heat with them. OK so high 80s/low 90s is not exactly sizzling by Texas standards, but when you have no AC that’s hot enough, thank you.

We invited them for dinner this past weekend and figured we’d grill them up some steaks, but I wanted to make their welcome-back dinner a little more special. So I tried my hand at making a compound butter with some of the fresh herbs from my planter garden.

Butter, Lemon, and Tarragon

This was so gosh-darn easy. OK I take that back. I do not have a proper zester and it frustrated the heck out of me to finally get at least a teaspoon of zest from the lemon on my cheese grater. I was so frustrated that I finally took a photo of my pitiful attempt before getting that amount (minus the chives, those were added last minute). But I finally got ‘er done!

This herbed lemon butter can be used for more than steaks, such as fresh steamed green beans or asparagus. In fact, I must try that!

Herbed Butter Log Ready to Chill

Tarragon Chive Lemon Butter on Grilled Steaks

1 stick of unsalted sweet cream butter (8 tablespoons)
Zest of one lemon plus about a teaspoon of the lemon juice from it
2 tablespoons fresh chopped tarragon
1 teaspoon fresh chopped chives
1 steak per person (we used New York Strip, any good steak cut will do)

Let the butter sit on the counter for a few hours to soften and bring to room temperature. Add the softened butter to a small bowl, then add the rest of the ingredients (except the steak, ha!). Using a fork, combine and squish and mix around until it’s all incorporated well. Plop the butter mixture onto wax or parchment paper, then roll it around until it’s the shape of a large tootsie roll. Seal it on the ends and then refrigerate until the butter hardens. In the interest of time I put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes then transferred to the refrigerator.

Grill up those steaks seasoned lightly with salt and lots of black pepper, then top with a pat of the herbed butter. Put the butter on while the steaks rest for five minutes, so it starts melting all over it. YUMM! This added such a fresh taste to the steaks, and my mom even used more of the butter for her baked potato. I loved the fact that nobody asked for any kind of bottled steak sauce! You will not be disappointed.

p.s. We are leaving again for a trip to our RV property on the coast for four days on Thursday after work. I don’t know if I’ll have time to write that one before we leave, but if not, you’ll see a fab new recipe early next week!

Melting Herbed Butter on Steak

Incredible Carne Guisada!

Incredible Carne Guisada

This dish is SERIOUSLY amazing!!! Using a subjective adjective in my blog title along with an exclamation point already breaks a couple of my self-imposed posting rules. And there I just broke two more with capital letters and a triple exclamation point in the first sentence. But I can’t help it. This Carne Guisada is Just. That. Good. We are talking lick your bowl good. We are talking Get Outta Here that good. I cannot stress enough how much I loved this!

So now that I got all that off my chest, it’s time to start talking about the dish itself. I wanted Mexican food the other day, but wanted something different — something I’d never made before. So I went to my near and dear cookbook The Homesick Texan Cookbook by Lisa Fain, who always draws me into her recipes with her stories and photos that make everything in there look so gosh-darned good. This particular recipe caught my eye, and is the basis for what I ended up with. It’s a stew-like dish, served with soft tortillas, or you can dip into it with tortilla chips like an appetizer. I mixed it up quite a bit from hers but she provided me the foundation from which to build on. That sounded very scholarly. The recipe and food is not, I guarantee! I really wish I had doubled this batch, because there was not near enough leftover for my liking. I wanted more, more, more the next day for my lunch.

Carne Guisada
Adapted from Lisa Fain The Homesick Texan

1 1/2 pounds cut of beef roast or steak, any kind, cut into 1-inch cubes
Mrs. Dash Table Blend, or salt, to taste
Flour to dust over beef, about a tablespoon or so
Ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped (I used half a yellow and half a red)
1/2 large jalapeno, seeded and diced small
1/2 serrano pepper, seeded and diced small
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
3 Roma tomatoes, chopped
2 small potatoes, any kind, chopped
1 bay leaf
Handful of chopped cilantro
1/2 cup homemade or low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup dark beer, or sub with more chicken broth
Flour tortillas, warmed before serving
More cilantro, for serving

Hot and Mild Peppers and Onions

I had a rather large, lonely New York Sirloin steak in the freezer, which I deboned to get a pound of meat, and a meager 1/2 pound of boneless beef ribs in the freezer, so used those too. The recipe called for beef chuck or bottom round, but it’s all beef and you cook the heck out of it so the cut is unimportant. Season the beef cubes with Mrs. Dash (or salt) and pepper, then lightly dust all around with flour. Heat the oil in a cast iron or heavy-bottomed skillet to medium-high heat, then add the beef, in batches. You don’t want to crowd it or it won’t brown properly. Cook until it’s browned on all sides. Transfer each batch to a crock pot and set on high heat. Reduce the skillet heat to medium and add the chopped onions, peppers, garlic and spices. Cook until the garlic becomes fragrant, just a few minutes or so, as you don’t want to burn it. Add a skosh more oil, if needed.

Carne Guisada Ready for Liquids

Now add the mixture to the beef in the crock pot, then the tomatoes, potatoes (adding some potato was pretty outlandish, but hey, it worked!), bay leaf, and chopped cilantro. Pour in the chicken broth and beer, if using. The darkest beer I had in the house at the time was an amber ale, but you can sub with chicken broth if you don’t have any. (Yes, I did drink the rest of the beer bottle. Waste not, want not!) Cover and cook on high for three or four hours, then reduce to low for a couple of more hours, or until ready to eat. If you started this prep earlier in the day, then you can cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. The longer the better. When it’s time to eat, warm up those tortillas in a hot skillet, add a mess of the Carne Guisada to a bowl, then start digging in, slathering and slopping up all the yummy juices with the tortillas. You won’t be disappointed. And of course go back for seconds and thirds. I did.

Carne Guisada