birthday steaks

Steve, you are ridiculous.

My boyfriend got my sister STEAKS for her birthday. Apparently he feels that is frequently at our house (true) and that he eats a lot of our food (I guess true, but so do we) and this is somehow him sponging off of us (not true).

So he gave us STEAKS. Whole Foods 100% grass fed steaks to appease his picky girlfriend.

Naturally, I felt extraordinary pressure to cook them well. I saw the prices!

  

That seasoning above is a current favorite of ours; we’ve been putting it on everything.

Threw those steakys on the grill, then put some veggies in packets (and left the corn in its best and nature grilling wrapper- its husk!)

I find that the easiest (and coincidentally easiest) way to cook corn on the cob is just leave it in the husk and let that char. It does smell kind of suspicious when the top burns (like you are perhaps lighting up something less legal). Anyway, I just hate boiling corn. I hate boiling anything.

Steve included mushrooms with the steak gift, an excellent pairing. Sliced ‘em, tossed ‘em with salt and pepper and just a tad bit of oil. Cooked (with the packet thoroughly sealed; key!) til gorgeous and ready for steak toppage

    

This is the same squash (literally the same, I brought the leftovers home) that I made in Chincoteague, fresh from the Eastern shore. I cooked it the same way, too, except after sprinkling with salt, pepper, and oil and wrapping it in foil, instead of literally throwing it in a fire, I threw it on the grill.

When squash is really good and really fresh, I think it needs to be cooked as simply as possible. Anyone who’s eaten mushy bland steamed stuff can also attest to that. And this beautiful goldenness speaks for itself.

I always err on the side of undercooking corn (the people who boil it for 20 minutes are out of their minds, in my opinion) and I actually overdid it a little on the grill! I remembered a time it’d barely cooked at all, so I left it wrapped in the husks a good long while (I guess part of this would actually be paying attention to how many minutes have elapsed when I cook things, eh?).

But anyway, it was beautiful bi-color corn and totally delicious despite being a little chewy.

As for the steak and my success cooking that to the correct amount of doneness (i.e. nothing more than MEDIUM RARE)… moment of truth…

It looked beautiful and grill-marked on the outside…

… I draped it in mushrooms, praying that if I (the horror!) had overcooked it or cooked it poorly that the flavorful and juicy mushrooms would help redeem it.

 

Dug in with a sharp knife and… SUCCESS!

Ho. ly. Cow. This steak was unbelievably delicious.

Steve and I talk about food a lot (not that you’d noticed or anything), and his dad is of the opinion that putting anything other than salt and pepper on a steak is absolute heresy. Like, you’re supposed to be making and tasting a steak, not a bunch of random stuff on top of it. If the meat’s good, it’s all you need.

So I did use my ragin’ Cajun’ mix, but I did keep it simple. And man oh man, this (organic! 100% grass fed!) hunk o’ meat was mighty delicious. Tender and lean (though I haven’t had steak in so long that I went, “Oh yeah, it has a strip of fat down the side!” My dad eats that but I just cannot handle the texture… or the idea of eating, yknow, pure fat.) And the flavor! It wasn’t bland! It was… I don’t know, meaty! Utterly savory!

So we sat down to one of those perfect summer meals.

 

Steak and ‘shrooms, corn on the cob, some of my mom’s awesome Greek potato salad, LOTS of squash (there were meant to be leftovers but… weren’t :D).

Also, Generous Steve got a steak for EACH of us. Two sirloins and a New York strip,. It was pretty hilarious (that first night my mother and sister and I COMBINED ate less than one). But can you imagine the leftovers? Ohhhh the leftovers.

For a wonderful sweet finish to the meal, I took some perfect peaches (also leftovers from the Eastern Shore) and wrapped ‘em in foil, with the merest hint of butter and honey, leaving them over the dying coals to cook as we ate dinner.

The result was tender, juicy, sweet, and blissfully redolent of July.