steak steak steak

Name that tune:

steak steak steak

steak steak steak

steak for dinner

steak for DINner

I have pictures!

Last week I made a stir-fry with some round steak and many many veggies. I marinated the steak for few hours. I thought it was pretty good. But then a couple days later Phil brought home steak taco leftovers from El Burrito and I was reminded just how flavorful the meat itself can be. I think I should cut it into smaller bits, or ideally thin strips, but that was tricky. I think I need more knife skills.

These pictures are from a Sunday night dinner - fajitas at Andrea and Jason's, featuring mitchmeat and chicken. Feel free to tell us how you made it so so tasty.

Sorry Neal, you are sideways.

Extreme chewing!

adding new meaning to the term "mystery meat"

Since our posts with Mitch's meats have become less frequent and I am in a procrastinating mood (really not uncommon for me -- empathize with C and J who have to put up with all my random interest emails) I found something cool to show you.

Check out one of the July 18 posts on this website>
http://www.perfectduluthday.com/

The answer is in the comments.

Chipotle Steak Fajitas with Tomatillo Salsa

Chris made some fabulous steak fajitas tonight.

Why is he not blogging them himself you ask? Why indeed. I don't exactly know, but I do know that I couldn't let these fajitas go unheralded on the internets. They were spicy and complex without more than a sprinkle of lettuce, lime and a fresh tomatillo salsa to complement their flavor. These were made with a round steak and came out nicely cooked - not too tough (though, with round steak we couldn't do them medium rare, which might be nice if we were using a different cut), and it soaked up the marinade beautifully. The chipotle and (our own garden fresh!) cilantro were a fresh and spicy flavor for the meat. I am transposing the recipe for Chris but note that although it was inspired from an episode of "Top Chef Masters" where they made tongue tacos, the recipe is all his. He is getting really good - good thing I married that dude!!


Chipotle Steak Fajitas with Tomatillo-Pepper Salsa
Marinade for the steak
1 tsp olive oil
1 chipotle pepper, chopped (from a can)
handful of cilantro
3/4 tsp Adobo seasoning
salt/pepper to taste

Cut up one round steak into cubes/strips and toss all marinade ingredients together with the raw steak in a plastic baggie or glass bowl. Refrigerate for a few hours. After the steak has marinated (we did 2 hrs), heat a skillet with 1 tsp oil and saute 1/2 an onion until soft. Add the steak and cook to desired doneness.

Tomatillo-Pepper Salsa
4 Tomatillos
3 Thai Dragon Chilis (or any spicy chili pepper - we just happened to buy a Thai Dragon Chili plant last week at the farmer's market .. they're suuuuuper spicy, so 3 teeny peppers is plenty of heat)
1 Orange Bell Pepper, seeded
1 tomato
juice of 1/4 of a juicy lime
handful of cilantro
salt to taste

Put all ingredients in a food processor and chop until desired chunky-ness. Chris pureed them to a pretty smooth sauce.

Serve fajitas with corn tortillas (heat them in the microwave for about 15 seconds .. not 2 minutes like Chris accidentally did :-), chopped lettuce, lime wedges and the tomatillo salsa. Yummmmmmy!

(Thirds:)

et cetera

We haven't made any mitchmeaty meals lately, but I thought I'd share these tidbits:

#1 I love graphs! We are all clearly in the ideal place on this graph this summer.

 from seriouseats.com

#2  Phil inquired about the haggis at the Seward Coop meat counter, and the very nice butcher wrapped up a free sample for him!  Apparently Seward is one of the 2 places in the US (or was it North America??) that makes haggis.  We have enjoyed haggis in the past at Andrea and Greg's Robbie Burns parties.  Or, at least I enjoyed it the last time... the first time I was too intimidated by the looking-like-a-gigantic-grey-slug thing to try it.  Those were large haggises (haggi?) with a diameter larger than a grapefruit.  The Seward haggis was more like a big long bratwurst. 

Here's the haggis, sliced and cooked up with egg.

After the dinner, Phil sang a song that went "Haggis/Egg/Drunken goat cheese/These are the foods of liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife" and commented, "I'm so glad I'm not a vegan." Amen. 

Where did I go wrong?

Yesterday it was chilly here in the house but I was reluctant to turn on the furnace. So I thought I'd both warm up the house a bit and cook dinner by using a technique I found on the internet for cooking a roast from a frozen state. I put one of Mitch's chuck roasts, a chunked up onion, potatoes and carrots, as well as a can of diced tomatoes and some water in a dutch oven pot. My internet source said that it would take four hours of cooking in the oven at 250 degrees for this mixture to produce a tasty roast. After three hours at 250 degrees I checked the pot and found that things were moving slowly toward the goal but maybe not as fast as I thought they should. I turned up the oven temp to 325. Left it all in there for two more hours. It's smelling very good at this point but I was kind of disappointed in the results. Potatoes done, carrots still kind of firm, meat done but didn't fall apart in as tender a state as I'd hoped it would. To be honest, my roast cooking experience is not deep so perhaps my expectations were not appropriate for this cut of meat or maybe this technique is not optimal. Any wisdom out there for me?

Post script: the house temperature went up one degree in the five hours the oven was on.

Saints Tailgate

Here was the first big meal I made with the hamburger - 4 pounds of beef made into 16 patties, combined with brats, hot dogs, corn, beans, and plenty of beer, was just enough to feed our group of 19 at the Saints game memorial day weekend.

Grilling was a blast and the game was awesome, from what I remember. There's been many more afternoons grilling since this, and will surely be many more to come this summer!

Home of the Beef!!

Wow this blog is amazing! Or crazy...I'm not sure yet...I think I'm still a bit disturbed by the title :)

Anyways, we randomly took some pictures of the cows this Easter, and looking back I think the one in the picture looking at the camera with the white face is "Number 16" though it could have been her sister. The other picture is of a bunch of the cows hanging out by our ponds in May.

But thank you to everyone - I'm so glad it all worked out and everyone likes the beef!! Its super tasty so far, and its going faster from my freezer than I ever thought it would, so thinking will have to do this again next fall!

I'll try to add some meals up here, and for sure will get pics next weekend when I plan to grill the tongue with some friends!

Cheers!