Thursday, August 26 2010

Usually, I am very critical of my own food. But today is not one of those occasions. Today was a day where serendipity managed to provide a lovely feast. We had all driven up to Newmarket around lunch time, when I started thinking about dinner tonight. I had wanted to make chicken and dumplings the other day, so thought it would be a good and easy meal. I stopped on the way back at Price Chopper, about ten minutes' drive from home. Once inside, I decided to go with a steak for tonight instead and selected three smallish pieces of New York striploin.

I grabbed a couple of fresh beets with plans for a beetroot salad with shaved parmesan.

Some more field tomatoes from next door ...

While wandering round - it is a new supermarket for me and I have to look over every inch - I came across a bottle of hot sauce made from Scotch Bonnet peppers.

This I took about a tablespoon of, mixed with some white wine vinegar and black pepper, and then with cut up mangos from my dwindling stash, all zipped in a bag and into the fridge.

As an added treat, I made a variant on skordalia, which is a Greek garlic, olive oil and bread sauce. You can use potatoes, but I had bread on hand. As it neared completion, I included a raw egg yolk and about half a lemon. You can do the whole thing in a blender, but I went for the hand-pounded pestle-and-mortar old school version. My exercise for the day! It is not usually for steak, but went together very well.

For the steaks, I rubbed a Jamaican-esque dry rub, called Steak Spice, that I found in the supermarket, and went outside to grill: medium / medium rare for me, medium well for the girls.

Did the girls' steaks first as I find it easier to cook meats at different done-ness separately. Theirs came out just perfect - for them.

Closed the lid of the barbecue to jack up the heat again only to hear a faint sputtering. Opened the lid - no flame. No more gas.

Sadly, I had to cook mine indoors. It was still tasty but didn't have that nice grill taste.

* * * 

Oh well.

FOOD COSTS:

Steak Spice $ 1.99

Hot sauce $ 2.39

Beets $ 0.36

Pamigiano $ 9.70

Striploin $ 4.59

Thursday total $ 19.03