Bone-In Ribeye w/ Mushroom Balsamic Sauce

Happy Friday, guys!

How was everyone's week?  Ours was pretty busy.  I've been working all week and just have been too exhausted to do much of anything else!  I had the pleasure of having the day off yesterday, though, and decided to surprise Andy with some big and juicy steaks for dinner.

The sauce is really easy, too.  I decided to pickle some mushrooms (weird, but pleasantly acidic) and use the quick pickling liquid as a component in an easy pan sauce. 

The whole meal came together in less than 30 minutes and was absolutely delicious!  We both cleaned our plates right up!

Ingredients:

2 bone-in ribeye steaks
salt and pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 lb. cremini mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup white balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup veal/beef stock
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

In a small saucepan, bring the balsamic vinegar and salt to a boil.  Stir until the salt is completely dissolved.  Place the mushrooms in a small bowl and cover with the hot pickling liquid.  Let sit for at least 30 minutes.

Heat a large cast iron skillet under medium high heat.  Melt the 2 tablespoons of butter.  Season steaks with salt and pepper on both sides.  Add to skillet and cook until a nice sear forms.  Cook the steaks until desired doneness - a perfect medium rare for us take about 7-8 minutes depending on how thick your steaks are.

Remove the steaks from the skillet and let rest on a cutting board.  Add the mushrooms and pickling liquid to the pan to deglaze.  Cook until mushrooms are starting to soften and vinegar is reduced to about 3 tablespoons.  Add veal stock and reduce liquid by half, or until at a syrupy/sauce-like consistency.  Mount the sauce with the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Serve steaks with desired starch (we had some mashed potatoes) and top with mushrooms and sauce.

This was definitely a nice little treat.  We don't have red meat very often, but when we do, we like to do it up right!
Hope you all have a great weekend!

Herbed Ribeye Steaks

I've been a real carnivore lately.  I don't know if it's my current workout, the heat, or whether the meat in the meat department looks especially tempting - but we've had some steaks at least once a week for the past couple of weeks. 

These ribeyes were so easy and tasty, I knew I had to share them with you guys.  If you have an herb garden like I do, just pluck your favorite herbs, throw in some garlic if you'd like, and you're on your way to meat heaven.

Ingredients:

2 ribeye steaks
2 tablespoons herbs of your choice (I used rosemary, thyme, and sage), finely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil

In a small bowl, combine the herbs, garlic, and olive oil.  Season with salt and pepper.  The herbs should be dense like a paste so you can spread them on the ribeye. 

Heat a grill or cast-iron skillet (it was way too hot outside to be grilling) to medium high heat.

Spread the herb mixture on both sides of the steaks.  Cook steaks to desired doneness.

And bam, a fantastically easy steak dinner in no time!  You can even deglaze the cast iron skillet (if you didn't choose to grill, of course) with some red wine and beef stock to get a fantastic sauce.  Let it reduce until slightly thickened and then mount it with a pat of butter - pour the sauce on top of the steaks to take them to a whole other level!

Hope you guys are still staying cool - we're expecting temps in the high 80's this week (which is a MAJOR change from triple digits!) - so hopefully we can enjoy the outside while we can =)  Have a great day guys!

Ribeye w/ Asparagus

Okay, remember that whole statement from Thursday of me saying that I was going to be getting into some debauchery, but not 'really'?  Well, 'really' happened.  Hehe.  I've been a bit behind (obviously, since there was no post yesterday), so I couldn't just leave you guys empty handed.  And hopefully I'll be up to speed Monday!

So let's talk Ribeye.  A lot of people kind of stray away from ribeye cuts.  Too much marble to work around, and all that jazz.  But me.  I love a good ribeye.  I actually LOVE the marbling (am I sick?  I don't care!)  And the beauty of a ribeye to me, is it's simplicity.  You don't have to jazz it up, you can just let the good grass-fed beef (assuming that you bought a grass-fed beef product) speak for itself.  And to pair it with some simply sauteed asparagus and squirt of lemon juice?  And you have yourself dinner in seriously less than 20 minutes. 

Think I'm crazy?  Think I'm lying?  Try it for yourself.  I'll show ya! =)

Ingredients:

1 lb. boneless ribeye steak
salt and pepper, to taste
olive oil, for rubbing
about 15-20 asparagus spears
juice from 1 lemon
lemon slices, optional
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, optional

Preheat oven to 500 F.

Heat a large oven-proof skillet under high heat. 

Rub ribeye with olive oil and generously season with salt and pepper on both sides. 

Place ribeye in dry skillet and cook for about 30 seconds.  Using tongs, flip over and cook an additional 30 seconds.

Carefully place skillet in oven and cook for about 3-4 minutes per side, for a medium rare/medium.

Carefully remove skillet from oven and transfer steak to cutting board to rest for about 5 minutes.

While your ribeye is resting, you can prepare your asparagus.  Gently toss the spears with some olive oil, salt and pepper.  Squeeze the juice of half of a lemon onto the asparagus. 

Carefully wipe the skillet used for the steak clean with a paper towel (it'll still be hot, so make sure you're careful!) and heat under high heat.  Melt 1 tablespoon of butter to the skillet and add asparagus.  Saute for about 2-3 minutes or until starting to soften, but still crisp and green.

Cut whole ribeye in half to serve as two steaks.

To plate, arrange about 6-7 spears on a plate and top with one ribeye steak and serve with a lemon wedge.  You can also top your steak with a little pat of butter, if you'd like.

Seriously.  Simplicity.  At. It's Finest.  No joke.  And what did I tell you?  Dinner is ready in 20 minutes!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend guys! 

And I know I've been all about the meat this week, but I promise next week will be a little 'sweeter' and 'lighter'!