"January – Here are four good dinners to start the New Year right."
First Sunday: The Original MenuStuffed steak
Browned potatoes
Creamed cauliflower
Evaporated peaches
Beaten biscuit
Fruit salad
Plum pudding with sauce or lemon pie
Coffee
The original stuffed steak calls for two pounds of round steak and a stuffing of bread crumbs, onions, herbs, and an egg. It is browned in meat drippings, then placed in a casserole with water and baked slowly.
Although I appreciate the economical nature of this dish, I chose to punch it up a bit: my stuffed steak would be flank steak stuffed with spinach, tomato bruschetta mixture and blue cheese, as all but the tomato mix are leftover ingredients from previous meals (and I hate throwing food away!).
I substituted the browned potatoes with sweet potatoes, as I thought it would make a better color combination than white potatoes with a side of white cauliflower. Originally I intended to brown the potatoes with the meat, until I realized I was cooking the meat with a tomato/water base, and sweet potatoes just didn't seem to go well with Italian tomatoes. So I chose candied sweet potatoes instead (baked medallions sprinkled with butter and brown sugar).
I LOVE creamed dishes! And I can quickly and easily make white sauce. However, I usually have a creamed dish as the MAIN dish – creamed cauliflower as a side just seems too rich and heavy. However, I still wanted to preserve the original intent of the meal, which called for some sort of cauliflower, so I chose mashed cauliflower instead. I have never made the dish before but I always wanted to, so why not?
Evaporated peaches are cooked peaches served cold as a relish. Since the menu also includes fruit salad, it seemed a bit much. Since the intent was to have a cold relish, I substituted dill pickles (for me – I'll only eat Vlasic baby kosher dills) and Italian-style jalapenos (for Brian).
Beaten biscuit is flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and lard made into a dough. I'm not a very good baker, so I chose to skip the biscuit and substitute garlic bread, as we already have a half baguette that would otherwise go to waste.
The fruit salad is one of the infamous gelatins! I remember gelatins from my childhood – and some of them were very good (others, not so good). I've even seen modern-day recipes for molded salads, so it's not completely a lost art, but it's also not an art I'm interested in learning. The original recipe calls for canned cherries and canned pineapple mixed with whipped cream and mayonnaise, molded and served over lettuce leaves. It's very old-fashioned – nothing modern about it. So instead I will use fresh pineapple and fresh cherries topped with real whipped cream and served as dessert. More modern, fresh, and no mayo!
As for the suggested desserts – I love both plum pudding and lemon pie! But baked goods and sugar are indulgences I can't partake on a weekly basis. That's just too much. So we'll skip them.
First Sunday: The Modern MenuStuffed steak
Candied sweet potatoes
Mashed cauliflower
Garlic bread
Pickles & Italian jalapenos
Fruit salad
Coffee and Gold
The Details
Unwrapped flank steak and immediately realized that "the Kitten" believes it's still live game that he must hunt. Silly Kitten! Hunting is best done in the bathroom with the door closed where no one can disturb you. Quick, get the evil catnip mousie before he gets you!
Preheated oven to 350, drizzled some olive oil in a frying pan and heated it to medium.
Put 2 tablespoons of tomato bruschetta in the center of the steak and topped it with blue cheese then a few handfuls of spinach. Now the hard part: "rolling" the steak. It's not like biscuit dough and didn't roll very well or tightly. Instead it left a large hole in the center, which conveniently had stuffing mixture in it.
Since I didn't have any twine I just used my hands to place the whole thing in the hot pan to sear the meat (note to self: buy cooking twine!). Using a spatula I gently turned the meat to sear all sides, then placed it in a large, white casserole dish. Some of the stuffing mixture loosened so I tucked it back in, then sprinkled the top of the meat with Tuscan seasoning. Next I added ½ cup of tomato juice and water, covered the dish and placed it in the pre-heated oven. It should be done in about 1-1/2 hours.
Now that the meat is safely in the oven and the Kitten has caught the evil mousie he is released, only to discover a new threat to our household: the fry pan with meat drippings, perched menacingly in the kitchen sink. He courageously attacked the threat, which was placed in the dishwasher to protect all of us (the Dog got in a few licks while it was in the dishwasher, just in case it was still dangerous).
Next I peeled the sweet potato and cut it into reasonable medallions, placing them in a pot of water.
Aroma from the oven smells good…
Onto mashed cauliflower. I've never made this before but it sounds tasty and will hopefully be less heavy than the creamed cauliflower called for in the original menu. Since there is only two of us I used only half the head of cauliflower.
Now things start to move more quickly: Brian comes upstairs to begin making garlic bread. Of course, the bread might be evil so the Dog and the Kitten must sample it first. The bread's a tad hard, so Kitten's is softened in a bit of milk. Fortunately the bread is not evil so it's safe for us to eat (now that I think of it, it never is evil, but it doesn't hurt to check I guess).
The sweet potato medallions are in the oven, sprinkled with brown sugar and the cauliflower is boiling, so it's time to make whipped cream. The whipper and bowl have been in the freezer for about 15 minutes so hopefully it's cold enough. Since Brian does not like whipped cream I only need to make enough for me.
I poured ¼ cup of heavy whipping cream in the bowl and six exhausting minutes later – whipped cream! Actually, over-whipped cream, but it still tastes good.
I cut the pineapple into two rings, placed one ring on each dessert plate, then topped it with the pitted cherries. I live in Michigan, which prides itself on its cherry trees, and yet all I could find at the store were maraschino cherries and pitted cherries in rum. I bought the cherries in rum, thinking they would be less sweet. They are, and I like the rum liquor, but Brian may not care for it. Fortunately there's some chocolate in the fridge (chocolate is also prey and must be kept stored away or else it will be ravaged by the Kitten and the Dog – a big no-no as chocolate can make animals very, very ill).
Make coffee (just for me, Brian will drink caffeine-free Diet Coke, or "Gold" as we call it).
Brian mashed the cauliflower while I took out the meat and arranged it on the platter. Sadly, I prepped a bit too much butter and milk for the cauliflower so it came out a bit runny.
We took a picture and sat down to eat. Brian LOVES the meat with its sauce. I like the mashed cauliflower. We both agree that stuffed steak should be added to the "house menu."
First Sunday: Successful!
The Day AfterBeef hash supreme
Lemon butter broccoli
Garlic bread
Grapefruit
Beef hash supreme – Heat in a skillet equal amounts of cubed cooked potatoes and cubed cooked meat. Add sautéed onion and mushrooms, then top with tomatoes, sour cream and cheese.
