Surprise! A food post!
Mar. 23rd, 2005 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidAbout dinner last night. [Warning: distinctly non-vegetarian.]
I'd decided to cook red meat, which I have practically no experience doing. I remembered to take the meat out of the freezer the night before (non-trivial; I tend to cook mostly-frozen poultry, and that doesn't work for beef, especially sauteeing it). And luckily, Bbbsg had posted a recipe for steak (venison steak, but I figured it would work for beef, too). Her suggested side dish was mashed potatoes, but I don't have any potatoes. I didn't want to stop for groceries, so I kept thinking about what to have on the side, letting it mull.
On the way home, it all crystallized. The menu: steak ("minute steak", according to the Meal Mart box), steamed broccoli (somehow, steak always has to have a green vegetable with it, either broccoli or green beans. No, I don't know why.), leftover roasted tomatoes, and refried beans. Well, canned beans are kind of mushy, in a way not totally unlike potatoes...
The broccoli was easy, peeling the stems, slicing them, dividing the heads into florets. Usually I forget and leave them steaming too long, until the sludgy green color (not truly mushy, but the color is not appealing). This time, I remembered (perhaps because there were two other pots on the stove also needing attention :-).
I sauteed half a huge onion (it would've been the whole onion, but I only had the one. I don't know why I seem to be so frequently out of onions; it's frustrating.) in olive oil, then remembered I had a jar of roasted red peppers. I chopped some of them up (um, once I got the jar open. It was obstinate, even when I used one of those rubber jar opener thingies.). Once they'd comingled with the onions, I added a can of black beans and a can of pink beans (rinsed), then the end of a jar of pinjur (a spicy red pepper and eggplant spread/dip), and a little hot sauce. I mashed them, and they were done.
The tomatoes were easy; I took the bowl out of the fridge. They were leftover from Shabbat, for which I'd roasted the minyan of Roma tomatoes (from Boston Organics) with onions and olive oil.
And the meat. I sauteed the other half onion (I'm glad it was such a large onion) until it was heading towards caramelized, then put in the four steaklets (all about palm sized, none with bone) to brown. I ground black pepper over them before turning, having decided that salt on kosher meat is coals to Newcastle, as it were. I flipped them after a couple of minutes, then flipped them again a couple of minutes after that, not totally sure they were done.
But they were. It was perfect, with the slight crunch from the broccoli, the intermingling of beans and tomato into a more complicated starchy taste, and the savory steak, cooked until rare. And there were leftovers for today, too.
I think the best part, though, is that I did this for myself. Not by myself (well, that too), for myself. It was what I wanted to eat, and though there were a number of distinct dishes involved, I didn't fall back to doing a one-pot meal, since it was just me. It felt like taking care of myself (whatever the nutritional value of the food), which is something I've been trying to do more consciously.
I'd decided to cook red meat, which I have practically no experience doing. I remembered to take the meat out of the freezer the night before (non-trivial; I tend to cook mostly-frozen poultry, and that doesn't work for beef, especially sauteeing it). And luckily, Bbbsg had posted a recipe for steak (venison steak, but I figured it would work for beef, too). Her suggested side dish was mashed potatoes, but I don't have any potatoes. I didn't want to stop for groceries, so I kept thinking about what to have on the side, letting it mull.
On the way home, it all crystallized. The menu: steak ("minute steak", according to the Meal Mart box), steamed broccoli (somehow, steak always has to have a green vegetable with it, either broccoli or green beans. No, I don't know why.), leftover roasted tomatoes, and refried beans. Well, canned beans are kind of mushy, in a way not totally unlike potatoes...
The broccoli was easy, peeling the stems, slicing them, dividing the heads into florets. Usually I forget and leave them steaming too long, until the sludgy green color (not truly mushy, but the color is not appealing). This time, I remembered (perhaps because there were two other pots on the stove also needing attention :-).
I sauteed half a huge onion (it would've been the whole onion, but I only had the one. I don't know why I seem to be so frequently out of onions; it's frustrating.) in olive oil, then remembered I had a jar of roasted red peppers. I chopped some of them up (um, once I got the jar open. It was obstinate, even when I used one of those rubber jar opener thingies.). Once they'd comingled with the onions, I added a can of black beans and a can of pink beans (rinsed), then the end of a jar of pinjur (a spicy red pepper and eggplant spread/dip), and a little hot sauce. I mashed them, and they were done.
The tomatoes were easy; I took the bowl out of the fridge. They were leftover from Shabbat, for which I'd roasted the minyan of Roma tomatoes (from Boston Organics) with onions and olive oil.
And the meat. I sauteed the other half onion (I'm glad it was such a large onion) until it was heading towards caramelized, then put in the four steaklets (all about palm sized, none with bone) to brown. I ground black pepper over them before turning, having decided that salt on kosher meat is coals to Newcastle, as it were. I flipped them after a couple of minutes, then flipped them again a couple of minutes after that, not totally sure they were done.
But they were. It was perfect, with the slight crunch from the broccoli, the intermingling of beans and tomato into a more complicated starchy taste, and the savory steak, cooked until rare. And there were leftovers for today, too.
I think the best part, though, is that I did this for myself. Not by myself (well, that too), for myself. It was what I wanted to eat, and though there were a number of distinct dishes involved, I didn't fall back to doing a one-pot meal, since it was just me. It felt like taking care of myself (whatever the nutritional value of the food), which is something I've been trying to do more consciously.