The Blonde Diaries

I am not a meat and potatoes kind of girl

I never was a huge fan of the meat and potatoes diet. I prefer fruits and veggies and in large quantities. Pasta and rice will do just as well. Lately though I find myself on a meat and potatoes diet and can I tell you I am getting awfully tired of it. I do like a good steak every now and then don’t get me wrong but we are now up to the 2nd or third week in a row that involves steak for dinner. Unfortunately, this week has gone from steak Sunday and Monday and Cheesy Chicken and Rice Wednesday thru Friday to Steak Sunday through at least Wednesday! ARGH!!! I can’t fault Mike for the excellent deal - 3 pounds of top sirloin for $8 as it is tasty but I really need to start getting into the habit of cutting things up and freezing separately so we can avoid weeks like this. Plus it is not good for the diet!!! The killer in all of this is that Friday my mom wants to take Mike out for his “birthday dinner” at Saltgrass. Another steak dinner!!! It will be a long while after this week before I agree to buy let alone cook steak. I’ve had enough to last a while. lol

On a side note I did finally figure out the way to pan sear and then broil steak to a nice medium temperature. I found the best was just to undercook it, see how undercooked it was, and adjust from there. It seemed to work. For these pieces which were about 1 to 1.25 inches thick I pan seared 1 minute each side then put in the broiler for 2 minutes, took out and assessed and put back in for another 2 minutes which worked out perfectly. So at least I didn’t overcook them and can feel accomplished. It’s only taken 4 tries but I did it!

It’s Steak Night again!

We are trying to do steak night again. This time around Mike wants to try the Smith & Wollensky method since he heard from a coworker that that is the best way to prepare a steak. I don’t see what was wrong with the George Foreman method I tried last time but apparently that was not a “proper” way to do it per Mike. So we are off to church right now and have the steaks out on the counter warming up to room temperature. After church we are stopping by Mike’s apartment and grabbing the cast iron skillet since it is stove top and oven safe and giving this a try. Basically from what I have read online we are to heat up the skillet as hot as possible and sear the steaks on one side for about 1 minute then flip and throw in the oven for 2 minutes per side and we are suppose to have the perfect Medium steaks. I’m letting Mike do most of the handling of this little adventure especially since it calls for using the cast iron skillet which is really heavy. If this method works as we believe it will I will report back tomorrow with exactly what we did, how long, and pictures.

Wish us luck!

Budget Surf and Turf

Two years ago if you would have told me surf and turf would be one of my favorite things to eat I would have laughed you out of the room. I was not a huge fan of beef at all nor did I like crab meat back in the day. But over the years my taste buds have changed and I have learned to love a good steak and I’m still coming around on the crabmeat part.

So earlier this week, Mike and I decided to cash in his Christmas gift from work since we had finally made some room in the freezer. As promised, Omaha Steaks delivered our order via UPS Friday afternoon: 4 top sirloins, 2 lbs King Crab legs, 1.5 pounds shrimp. We decided that on Saturday we would attack 2 of the steaks and the 2 pounds of crab legs which gave me exactly 24 hours to figure out what I needed to do to cook these suckers. All in all everything turned out pretty well Saturday night. Talk about being Yumm-O!

I did a little price checking and much to my surprise, Omaha Steaks is a tad out of our price range. But the food and the concept was so good that I decided to start looking for budget ways to make this at home. Here is what I have found:

1. My local Kroger has been putting steak on sale quite a bit lately. Mike actually was walking by the meat counter last week and found 2 steaks marked down for $5 with the Kroger card. These were not about to “expire” nor were they turning brown. So lessons learned: Join your grocery store’s reward program and check for sales every time you go!
2. The surf part can be made with any seafood really - shrimp, crab, crawfish, etc. So not only check for what is on sale but don’t be afraid to either cut the poundage down (2 pounds for 2 people was an insane amount of crab) or go for the imitation stuff. Imitation crab meat is not all that scary and it tastes pretty much like the real deal - the bonus is that its half the price!
3. Its all about how you season each part of the meal. Here in Houston, garlic butter is used as your “steak sauce” not A1. So either make your own at home by simmering minced garlic in some cheap butter on the stove or ask next time you go to a steak restaurant for them to pack a little extra with your to-go boxes. Its very yummy and you don’t have to worry about figuring out the recipe.

I hope this helps you in planning your next surf and turf night as I know I will be referring back to this thread when I finally defrost the $5 steaks Mike bought for us. Happy budgeting and cooking!