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A few days ago I mused again how cooking nice meals at home requires time and preparation. Neither of things things are hard; they just require... time and preparation. 😅
The nifty thing about preparation is that it can be done in advance. Well, some of it can be done in advance. And some of it can be done so far in advance you forget about it!
That happened to me when I was digging through our freezer Sunday morning to figure out what I could prep for dinner Sunday night. I found I had some pieces of good ribeye steak... from last December! I'd bought a large package on sale, parceled it out into more or less one dinner size portions, and frozen each portion in a separate bag. Would the meat still be good 10½ months later? Well, I'd already done the prep work to maximize the chances. I'd defrost it, grill it, and find out.
When I grill a steak for dinner, it's almost never just "I grill a steak". A good meal requires more than just good meat. And I do mean more-more than pairing it with a good red wine. 🤣 I opened a can of spinach and prepared it as creamed spinach, adding butter, a mixture of cheeses, and a few spices. I boiled and mashed potatoes. I toasted a roll of bread with butter and garlic. And, of course, I opened a bottle of good red wine.
The steak turned out pretty good. The marinade I threw together on Sunday afternoon worked well. Due to the thinness of the steak I did overcook it a bit, turning it out somewhere between medium to medium-well. I prefer medium-rare. But with thin steaks it's challenging to catch that sweet middle ground between still raw inside and slightly overdone. The good news there is that I have at least two more chances to improve my cooking technique; I have at least two more little packages of ribeye I want to use up before they reach their anniversary of sitting in the freezer!
The nifty thing about preparation is that it can be done in advance. Well, some of it can be done in advance. And some of it can be done so far in advance you forget about it!
That happened to me when I was digging through our freezer Sunday morning to figure out what I could prep for dinner Sunday night. I found I had some pieces of good ribeye steak... from last December! I'd bought a large package on sale, parceled it out into more or less one dinner size portions, and frozen each portion in a separate bag. Would the meat still be good 10½ months later? Well, I'd already done the prep work to maximize the chances. I'd defrost it, grill it, and find out.
When I grill a steak for dinner, it's almost never just "I grill a steak". A good meal requires more than just good meat. And I do mean more-more than pairing it with a good red wine. 🤣 I opened a can of spinach and prepared it as creamed spinach, adding butter, a mixture of cheeses, and a few spices. I boiled and mashed potatoes. I toasted a roll of bread with butter and garlic. And, of course, I opened a bottle of good red wine.
The steak turned out pretty good. The marinade I threw together on Sunday afternoon worked well. Due to the thinness of the steak I did overcook it a bit, turning it out somewhere between medium to medium-well. I prefer medium-rare. But with thin steaks it's challenging to catch that sweet middle ground between still raw inside and slightly overdone. The good news there is that I have at least two more chances to improve my cooking technique; I have at least two more little packages of ribeye I want to use up before they reach their anniversary of sitting in the freezer!
