Steak, Rosemary Potatoes and Salad

I haven't posted in more than a week - already falling short of my goal to post at least three times per week. There are two reasons for my absence: I have been craving lots of raw foods and salad, so we have resorted to eating more out-of-season foods. I figure raw vegetables is a pregnancy craving I should listen to, but it doesn't make for interesting posts. I also have been reading the Steig Larsson books. Have you read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series? I got the series as a Christmas present, but just got around to starting it last week. It is hard to put the books down, and it is good that I'm on third (and last) book because it is interfering a bit with the rest of my life.


A couple of weeks ago at the farmers' market, one of the farmers was providing cooking advice to another customer on how to cook steak. His advice turned everything I knew on its head. He suggested first cooking the steak in a cast iron pan in the oven and then searing it. He gave a convincing explanation as to why this would cook the steak more evenly and keep more juices inside. I can't remember the details now.

We had a big thick 2 pound sirloin steak, and I tried cooking it at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. When I checked it, it looked gray and hardly cooked it, so I put it in the oven for another 15 minutes. I seared it for 3 minutes on each side, and it looked nicely browned. After letting it rest, we started to slice it and found that it was well done (instead of the medium I was hoping for), but it was still nice and juicy. I would try using this method again, but cooking it only for 15 minutes in the oven. My husband thinks its crazy, but I think I'll give it one more shot and see if I can convince him.

Have you ever tried cooking a steak in the oven first followed by searing? How did it turn out?

This post is part of SuzieQTPies Scraps of Life Link-up, and...

Plans for Week 17

Yesterday was one of those days when I was really excited to do some cooking for the week, but nothing turned out quite right. That really kills the mood. I bought a chicken at the Union Square Greenmarket on Saturday, and decided that I wanted to boil it to create some chicken broth and shred the meat to use on salads. I ended up using the huge stock pot because the chicken was slightly too big for the normal soup pot. This pot is pretty wide, so in order to cover the chicken with water, I had to use a fair bit of water. The chicken stock ended up being really watery. The upside is that we have a lot of it. Oh well. I was planning to cook quinoa and brown rice in it anyways. I guess I managed to stretch it farther. After making dinner, I decided to bake some cherry tomatoes. We just got them on Saturday in our farm share, but they were very ripe. I have done this lots of times, but yesterday I left them in the oven too long, and they cooked down to burnt bits. I managed to save a few. Hopefully I got my kitchen mishaps out of the way for a while.


This week's share brought us arugula, some bitter greens for braising, daikon radishes, potatoes, beets, garlic, heirloom tomatoes and cherry tomatoes.

The plan for this week is:

Monday - Salad with pork chops and mushrooms

Tuesday - Steak topped with leeks and mushrooms, beet salad, and arugula salad

Wednesday - Chicken breasts with garlic scape pesto and salad

Thursday - Lentils with beets and goat cheese

Friday - Out to dinner


Last night we had some shredded chicken with tomato sauce, oven roasted potatoes and a big salad. The tomato sauce was really good and really dressed up a simple dinner. It was so simple, but full of great tomato flavor.

This post is part of Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist and Menu Plan Monday at I am an Organizing Junkie.