Flat Iron Steak for Dinner - and Lunch

I like to keep certain things in my freezer for those times when I need a quick, easy dinner.

Flat iron steak has recently earned its place in this category.

This cut of meat can be marinated for just an hour or two before being cooked.

I had a recipe in mind, but my dear husband ignored my instructions to stop at the grocery and pick up a bottle of whiskey.

Of course, he claims that I told him not to stop.

Oh to have that selective male hearing.

Life must be much easier when one can pick and choose what one hears.

*

Obviously I was going to have to wing this recipe.

Here I have assembled:

Extra virgin olive oil

black pepper

sherry

Light soy sauce

dried thyme

dried rosemary

fresh parsley

chives (in place of the green onion)

garlic

flat iron steak

*

The ingredients were mixed and put with the flat iron steak in a zip-top bag.

This marinated in the refrigerator for an hour before being removed and seared over medium-high heat in a non-stick pan.

The meat rested for about 15 minutes under foil.




I prefer to cook the flat iron steak to rare.

A baked Yukon Gold potato and sauteed broccoli round out the dinner.

This was good, but I think I would have liked it even better if I had been able to use whiskey in the recipe.

*

The Foodie Daughter gave this 5 stars, while the Foodie Boyfriend and I gave this 4 stars.

The dear husband gave this 3-1/2 stars.

I'd say this recipe passes muster.

I still want to try it with the whiskey.

I promised you lunch also, didn't I?

The next day I made a salad with Romaine lettuce and red onion in a tortilla salad shell.

Seared leftover flat iron steak and my homemade Honey French Dressing finish off this delightful salad.

This was almost better than its first incarnation.

Sun-dried Tomato and Queso Fresco

Stuffed Flat Iron Steak Pinwheel

I am always trying to think of new ways to make old foods.

Case in point; the flat iron steak.

This is a relatively new cut of meat

that was developed by scientists at the University of Nebraska

and the University of Florida.

They wanted to take a cut of meat from the shoulder

of the cow that commonly went to waste because of the

tough connective tissue that ran right down the middle of it.

They figured out a way to cut this piece of meat

eliminating the connective tissue

and the flavorful flat iron steak was "born."

As this piece of meat is a non-loin cut,

it should be marinated before cooking and should never

be cooked past medium.

Now that you know a bit more about flat iron steaks,

let's get on with the cooking.

The Sun-dried Tomato and Queso Fresco Stuffed

Flat Iron Steak Pinwheel covered

with a honeyed soy whiskey glaze.

The ingredients for the stuffed steak are:

the flat iron steak

1/4 cup crumbled Queso Fresco

1/4 cup minced sun-dried tomatoes*

2 tablespoons Country Dijon

1 clove garlic, grated

Pinch salt

Pinch black pepper

*I dry my own tomatoes, either in the sun,

or if the weather does not permit, in the oven set on 200,

with a bit of olive oil.

This is a good way to use tomatoes that are a bit wrinkled.

I then keep this bag in the freezer.

Carefully slice the steak open from the side, butterflying it. Looks like I need to practice. Mix the ingredients for the stuffing. And spread the mixture evenly over the steak. Then roll up, starting at one long end, making sure to keep the roll tight. Now you can practice your bondage knots. Oh, I'm so knotty.

Next up on the agenda is the marinade.

I personally never measure the ingredients,

but I did this time for you:

1/3 cup whiskey

1/4 cup cider vinegar

2 tablespoons honey

1/4 cup soy sauce

Pinch black pepper

1 teaspoon red chili flakes

1 teaspoon ground garlic

Mix together.

Marinate the meat in the marinade for at least an hour,

turning every 15 minutes or so.

About an hour before cooking the meat,

take the meat out of the fridge to allow the meat

to come to room temp.

Heat an oven-proof skillet over medium-high

heat on the stove.

Add a couple of tablespoons of oil

and when the pan is hot,

add the meat.

Sear on all sides and pour the marinade over the meat.*

Place the pan in a pre-heated 350 degree oven

and roast until the internal temperature reaches

135 degrees.

Take out and cover with foil.

Allow to rest for 10 minutes before cutting the strings

and carving.

*There is some controversy about reusing marinade

that has had raw meat in it.

My take on this is that you are eating formerly raw meat,

so why not the cooked marinade,

as long as it has been thoroughly cooked?

However, if this does bother you,

then by all means, just make up another batch

of the marinade, heat it up in a pan and

reduce it by half.

Ready for service.

Gotta work on those carving skills.

The meat was perfectly cooked.

And this was a delightful dish.

The meat was tender and the filling didn't overpower it.

The glaze was slightly sweet and had

a bit of a bite to it.

This dish definitely goes into the recipe rotation.

Rainbow Foods

While shopping at Sahara Mart last week, I found some organic produce that I just had to buy. Then I just had to figure out how to prepare this different food as well as what I would serve with it. Decisions, decisions.

A quick expedition into my freezer yielded a flat iron steak. That will work. Then it was off to the computer to find a recipe for this cut of beef.

Well, this recipe sounds like it would be right up Sandra Lee's alley. With a name like Drunken Flat Iron Steak, it seems like a natural. Oh wait, there are no seasoning packets or extracts used in the recipe. I guess Sandy wouldn't like it after all.

Here I have the ingredients for the marinade: garlic powder (how can I be out of garlic and onion?), kosher salt, black pepper, red wine (I have Shiraz wine on hand) and Dijon mustard along with the flat iron steak.

Since this recipe was developed for the restaurant industry, I had to cut the recipe for the marinade down roughly by a factor of 24 (give or take a bit). That translates to 1/2 cup red wine, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (I would have used an entire clove if I had one) and a pinch of kosher salt.

The next part of this recipe is the Soy-Balsamic Reduction. Again, I had to cut down the amounts. I reduced 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar and 1/4 cup sugar in a small pan. Just before I pulled the pan off the heat, I added 1 tablespoon Less-Sodium Soy Sauce. This is a personal preference as I don't like to reduce soy sauce as it concentrates the salty flavor of the sauce.

Thick and rich and delicious.

Hmm, maybe a bit too thick. This is a sauce that needs to be kept warm.

I opted to skip the fruit salsa from the recipe, and as I didn't have any onions on hand, obviously I wasn't going to be making any crispy onions either.

And now, on to our featured item on the menu...

Certified Organic Rainbow Bunch Carrots. Aren't they cute? My daughter didn't believe me when I told her what I had found. "They make purple carrots? No way!"

Yes, way.

This lovely bunch of carrots only cost $1.99. Not bad for organic Rainbow carrots.





So the inside of a purple carrot is white. Interesting. I have four different colors of carrots here.

I preheated a grill pan for the steak. Flat iron steak should be cooked rare to medium.

This is starting to smell wonderful.

While the steak continued to cook, I heated some canola oil in a small pan before adding the chopped carrots. I like my vegetables tender-crisp, so this didn't take long at all.

A sprinkling of kosher salt and a whisper of honey was drizzled over the top after the carrots were taken from the pan.

The flat iron steak is cut across the grain after it has rested for a few minutes. It is usually at this point that I have to put some of the meat back on the heat for my husband who doesn't like to eat rare or even medium-rare meat.

My dinner is ready now.

I made a Broccoli, Bacon and Cranberry Salad to accompany this meal.

The carrots were tender-crisp with just a hint of sweetness.

The meat was moist and flavorful. My husband liked it even without the Soy-Balsamic Reduction.

This was a very good meal and my husband asked me to put the meat dish into the menu rotation. I love it when a plan comes together.

And Now for Some Real Food

After subjecting my darling daughter to the horror that is Semi-Homemade Slop, I made a nice dinner as a way to apologize.

I found a recipe for Kentucky Bourbon Skirt Steak that sounded like just the thing. Of course, I didn't really follow the recipe since I didn't have any Kentucky Bourbon or Tabasco sauce on hand and I used a flat iron steak instead of the skirt steak. At least my substitutions actually made sense.

The ingredients are:

Hot Sauce

Corn Starch

Soy Sauce

Worcestershire Sauce

Brown Sugar

Whiskey

Dijon Mustard

Flat Iron Steak

1/2 cup whiskey, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup soy sauce, 2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce, 1/2 teaspoon Hot Sauce, 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard and 1 teaspoon corn starch were blended together.

Since this made a lot of sauce, I decided to only use part of the sauce for the marinade. The remainder was set aside for later.

I also don't own a vacuum marinator, so I placed the steak in a zipper-top bag and added a bit of the marinade. The bag was sealed after most of the air was removed. This then went into a container to guard against leaks while the remaining sauce was put in a storage container. The meat and sauce were placed in the refrigerator for several hours.

When it was time to cook dinner I boiled the remaining sauce in a sauce pan for five minutes while the steak seared in another pan.

If you decide to add the used marinade to the sauce, be sure to boil it for at least one minute, preferably longer. If the sauce is in danger of boiling over, carefully remove the pan from the heat until the danger is over. Remember, there is a good deal of alcohol in the sauce and spilling it on an open flame or a hot burner would be a bad thing.

The meat was allowed to rest for a few minutes before being carved for service.

Earlier I had put together a simple salad of chopped Romaine lettuce, red onion and grated fresh mozzarella cheese.

Then came the Semi-Homemade part of the meal: I opened a can of baked beans, drained off much of the sauce and added catsup, mustard and brown sugar. This is done strictly to taste and never comes out the same twice. Then chopped green onion, cooked bacon pieces and diced ham finished off the dish. I opted to cook the baked beans in the microwave this time, but they can certainly be baked in the oven (in which case it is not necessary to drain off the sauce from the can).

I think I may have redeemed myself for subjecting my poor daughter to the Smorrito earlier in the day.





Mmm, this was so good. The meat was tender and flavorful while the sauce lent a nice tangy yet slightly sweet taste. My family asked that I make this recipe again. I certainly will, although I would cut the amount of sauce in half the next time. But otherwise? I wouldn't change a thing.

A Weeknight Family Dinner

Well, what do you know? Wednesday evening was the first time this week we were all home together for dinner. That doesn't happen very often any more. So of course I had to take advantage of this rare opportunity and make a special dinner for my family.

That afternoon I put together a quick marinade of fresh lime juice, tequila, honey, a pinch of dried Serrano chili, salt and black pepper. This went into a plastic bag with a nice flat iron steak so that the meat could marinate for a couple of hours.

I have been wanting to try this dish for some time, and thought that this was as good a time as any. Pesto Pasta certainly sounds good, right?

Here I have linguine, freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, fresh flat leaf parsley, fresh basil and about 1/4 cup of frozen homemade pesto.

Now, would you look at what I have to work with here? Minx likes to just plop down wherever. That usually means he's right at my feet. I think he has made himself right at home.

Next we have a nice salad. I cut some beautiful lettuce leaves that are growing in a pot on my deck and I also plucked some lovely chive blossoms. Croutons made from bread scraps and freshly grated cheese compliment the sliced red onion for this salad.

The Pasta was cooked and drained and tossed with the thawed pesto. Then the grated Parmesan cheese and chopped parsley and basil were gently mixed in. In hind sight I should have added a bit of the pasta water to the pasta to help make more of a sauce, but this was still very good.

The meat was cooked to medium-rare and was tender and succulent. I realized later that a nice addition to this dish would have been some Chimichurri sauce. Perhaps next time, amigos.

Lunch and a Show

I had plans to go to the Ladies' Luncheon

at the Scottish Rite Cathedral in Indianapolis on Tuesday.

Thankfully, the snow had stopped falling

and the snow plows had finally been able to

clear the roads.

My dear husband had agreed to go with me

so I would have some company on the trip.

Isn't he sweet?

Let's hit the road, shall we?

The road outside our neighborhood is passable,

but still snow-covered.

The main road to Indy was nicely cleared.

There's one of those snow plows at work now.

This is how I like my snow -

on the ground and covering the trees,

but not on the roads.

Welcome to Indianapolis.

The signs on this parking lot always carry humorous messages.

Today's message reads

"Salt truck drivers love de-ice."

Oh, it looks like I might enjoy today's presentation.

Our salads arrived.

Thomas Caterers of Distinction presented us with a

Roasted Beet Salad with Rainbow Micro Greens

and candied Pecans garnished with an edible

Purple Dendrovian (try Dendrobium) Orchid.

The salad was quite delicious, with the flavors of the beets,

micro greens and pecans

nicely complemented by a bit of cream cheese.

I chose not to eat my orchid.

I prefer to look at them rather than eat them.

Then our entrees arrived.

We had a Drunken Flat Iron Steak

on a bed of Sweet and Purple Potato Hash

with crusty Ciabatta.

Thomas' Homemade Rolls with Butter

accompanied our dinner.

Finally we got to the dessert of

Key Lime Mousse Parfait.

Once again Thomas Caterers delivered a delicious meal.

*

And now on to the show.

I understand it is about Orchids.

Well, what do you know?

It turns out that I'm the speaker.

Hopefully I entertained the ladies with my presentation on orchids.

Who knows,

perhaps even some of them might be inspired

to try growing these beauties at home.