Valentine’s Day: A steak to be remembered

Holly had the most amazing cooking triumph on Valentine’s day this year. She always cooks a romantic dinner for us, but we were kinda not sure what to do this year, since V-day was on a Sunday. I had also just landed a new job and I wanted a steak to celebrate that, but we didn’t want to take away from Valentine’s day. So we decided to combine the two, stay in and reproduce a steakhouse style dinner at home. We grabbed my favorite cut of steak: a bone in rib-eye. It was fun to get our own selected meat from a butcher; I had actually never done that before. We got two baking potatoes and the stuff to make creamed spinach.

Now, to cook a steak at home you really need a cast iron skillet and an oven. You could use a grill but the technique is totally different and, well we don’t have a grill. So, we went to Ross last night and got a killer deal on a massive Paula Deen cast iron skillet. The thing weighs like 10 pounds. Pretty sure we’ll be using it for the rest of our lives. So we preheated the oven to 450 degrees and put the skillet on high heat for a few minutes. Holly seasoned the steaks with some fresh garlic, steak seasoning and canola oil. Then the magic started. We put the steaks in the pan for 30 seconds on each side to develop a nice crust. Then into the oven they went while I stood there salivating. It was cool to hear the sizzle sounds even with the oven door closed. The smells were amazing at this point, filling the whole apartment with a steakhouse aroma.

We let the steaks cook for about 5 minutes before checking the temperature: 140° A little too rare for our taste, so back they went into the oven for another couple minutes. All this time, Holly is somehow working on the creamed spinach and baked potatoes. As is always the case in her kitchen, things start off slow, get crazy REAL fast, then amazing food comes out and I’m left there kind of wondering how it happened. In fact, as the steaks were finishing up I went to walk the dogs and when I got back in, she was basically done plating and we ate just a few minutes later.

Here’s a few pics of the final product. I can’t begin to tell you how awesome everything tasted. I even loved the spinach! I put some A1 on the table, but we never even needed it. The meal was totally amazing and so completely fun to cook together!

You should know by now that “good” is never good enough for my wife’s cooking. Since she was recreating a steakhouse experience, she also made her very own white / dark chocolate mousse dessert the night before. It may look like chocolate pudding and whipped cream, but let me assure you: you have never tasted a dessert this decadent. The white filling is a white chocolate mousse folded into heavily whipped cream and the dark chocolate is a rich custard with just enough cinnamon to make your tongue sizzle. MMMMmmm words can’t explain how good that dessert was.

I hope my words and these pics can show you just a piece of how awesome my wife can cook. I know I probably sound like a broken record but you can’t say enough good things when you love somebody as much as I love my girl. Thanks for being such a great wife and for making such an amazing Valentine’s Day dinner baby!