The Other Maytag

Let's forget the listening to/reading/
watching/thinking/whatever and focus on food and drink for a moment.

Oh, kids. Kids, kids, kiddos, kidlings. Did I make the dinner-to-end-all-dinners last night.

Before my little nip-tuck I bought a fabulous 2000 Heitz Cellar Napa Cabernet Sauvignon as a "Woo-hoo! It's over!" little celebratory bottle.

Once I had the wine I thought, "Well, crap. We need a couple of really good steaks to go with this" and ordered four pasture-raised, organic, dry-aged NY strip steaks from the good people at American Grass Fed Beef. To say they are beautiful is to do them a gross injustice. They are flawless. Morton's, Ruth's Chris, Chop House perfect - and a fraction of the price.

Once I had the steaks I thought, "Well, crap again. I can't just slap these on the grill nekked as they are" so I began my search for The Perfect Steak Recipe.

I know, I know, to anyone who cooks, "Steak Recipe" makes about as much sense as "Automobile Elm Bronchitis." That is to say, not at all. But I wanted to incorporate bleu cheese into this situation and was not 100% confident in my ability to off-the-cuff create something edible, so I turned to the foremost online authority on such matters, Epicurious, for guidance.

I did find a recipe, Blue Cheese Crusted Steaks with Wine Sauce and mostly, sort of, almost followed it. In case you're interested in trying this at home, here's what happened:

Made the wine sauce, only with equal parts shallots and garlic, twice as much thyme, sliced baby portabellos, an entire bottle of Cabernet Franc and 3 cups beef stock. Reduced it over med-high for an hour. In hindsight I'd let it go another 30 minutes.

In lieu of panko I toasted finely chopped walnuts and mixed them with the parsley and bleu cheese. Seasoned the steaks with kosher salt and fresh pepper, and The Hubster slapped them on the grill and cooked them to medium-rare. After that I pressed the bleu cheese-walnut concoction on top of the still-sizzling beauties and put them under the broiler for about 3 minutes. This brought them up to almost medium-done.

Served with garlic mashed potatoes and caramelized garden veggies (baby sprouts - yes, again - radishes and an errant baby carrot prematurely harvested) finished with breadcrumbs and more parsley.

Tonight? I'm channeling Gordon Ramsay (who I can't stop dreaming about, but that's another post) and making acorn squash risotto. We may need to go meatless for the rest of the week after last night's artery-clogging, carnivorous feast.