So about a week or so I ago I talked about this great steak that I’ve figured out how to make and said I’d post the recipe and then, well, whoops.  And I know I’ve talked about the awesome spaghetti sauce I made last weekend. So.  I thought I’d finally post the recipes for them so you can enjoy them too!

These are pretty easy–even I haven’t found a way to mess them up!

Pan Fried Steak

I’m too lazy to set up the grill most nights but once a week I like to fix steak and fries for Will and I for dinner.  I get eye of round steaks because they’re smaller and easier to fry up on the stovetop.  I’ve also learned (the hard way) that using oil to cook steak mostly results in an apartment filled to the brim with smoke and steam–even if you don’t accidentally set something on fire.  So one night I experimented with melted butter instead of oil and the result was SO GOOD (and mostly smoke free)! The butter just melts and cooks into the steak instead of steaming up and making a bunch of smoke.  If you’re super health conscious you might want to try Smart Balance or a healthier butter substitute, but I haven’t tried any of those so I can’t vouch for the final taste.  Anyway…

You’ll need:

• Eye of Round Steak (however much you need to feed your family)
• Butter (or your favorite healthier alternative butter substitute BUT NOT OIL)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic
• Sage

Turn your burner on high and let the pan heat up.  Toss some salt and pepper into the pan.  When the pan is hot, drop your steaks into the pan and sear for a couple of minutes on each side.  Turn on the fan to suck up the smoke that will come from this.

Turn down the heat on your burner to medium and drop a couple of tablespoons of butter (or your healthier substitute BUT NOT OIL) into the pan and allow to melt.  Stab the steaks all over with a sharp knife.  Flip the steaks over and stab them all over on the other side.

Turn the steaks over every couple of minutes until they are almost as done as you want them to be.  Add more salt and pepper to the melted butter and sprinkle a little bit of sage and garlic over both sides of your steaks.  Do not drain the butter but allow it to cook into the steaks.

Remove the steaks from the pan when they are as done as you want them to be.  I like mine well done and Will likes his about medium well so I usually cut mine up into thin strips right as Will’s steak hits about medium done-ness so that I can cook everything as much as we both like and still have them done on time.

YUM!

Spaghetti

Once upon a time my parents were battling over who made the better spaghetti sauce.  My Mom’s was pretty straight forward–she followed the directions on the back of the McCormick’s spaghetti sauce envelope.  My Dad got a little bit more creative and would toss in extra ingredients–whatever veggies we had on hand, extra spices.  It was a chunkier sauce but still basically tasted the same.  Back then I sided with my Mom, mostly out of girl power togetherness.  As I’ve grown up and as I’ve gotten more comfortable in the kitchen I’ve gotten better at experimenting with ingredients and not producing a gross mess.  Last weekend I decided to try out something new and wow! It was yummy! Here’s how I made it:

Start with the sauce.

You’ll need:

• ground beef (I use between 1-1.5 lbs of ground beef–the fat content isn’t that important because you can always drain it out)
• McCormicks Spaghetti Sauce with Mushrooms spice mix (roughly 1 pack per pound.  I used one pack for this sauce)
• Can of tomato SAUCE (not paste) (I used an 8oz can for this recipe)
• Green Pepper
• Red Pepper
• White Onion
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic
• Olive Oil
• Water

First chop up the green and red pepeprs, and the onion and set aside in a bowl.  You can cut these up into big chunks or dice them into small pieces, depending on your taste.  I diced mine up pretty small.

Next you make the regular sauce. Basically what you do here is follow the instructions on the back of the McCormicks spice pack: brown the beef, drain off the excess fat, stir in the tomato sauce spices and some water)

HINT:  I start out with half as much water as the instructions call for and then add more as needed to keep it saucey instead of sloppy-joe-y.

Once the basic sauce has been made, turn your burner down to low and stir in the peppers and onion.  Shake on some extra salt, pepper and garlic to taste and add a teensy bit of olive oil (I usually just fill up the bottle cap and then dump that in).  cover with one of those flat meshy strainer things that allows the steam to escape but keeps everything else out.

While that is simmering over low heat, start the water for the noodles.  When it starts boiling make the noodles according to package directions.

Making the sauce before you make the noodles allows the flavors to cook together, which is important to the final taste.

After this, it’s up to you if you want to combine everything in one pot or serve up the noodles and then spoon the sauce over the top of them.  I choose the noodles first then spooned sauce method, but it’s really up to you.

I discovered the goodness of this mostly because I wanted to use the peppers that have been sitting in our fridge for a while that were about to go bad.  What a pleasant surprise I had when it was all done cooking.  Now I’m wondering what else I can try adding peppers to!