Wednesday, April 21, 2010

I made 'Steak Diane'!!!

Those of you who knew me really well in my early days of marriage will appreciate this more than those of you who didn't, because of how disastrous I was in the kitchen due to a bizzare lack of confidence for something so ... not frightening. Since I have overcome my fear of cooking, I have cooked mostly new recipes. Mum and Dad are both fabulous cooks, so I've 'wisely' avoided cooking things from our family cookbook, because then I didn't know how badly I was messing up :) (I was about to say 'makes sense, right?', then I pictured James' face when I say that about something like this).

The other night I asked James to pick up some meat on the way home from uni 'anything! - I haven't decided what's for dinner yet!', and he got 4 big steaks for $6, which I was very happy with. He even said "And we don't even need to eat them all tonight!" It had never occurred to me that we would.

I used the first steak in a stir fry with veg on rice.

Last night I used the second to make Steak Diane, because I passed the recipe in the book, and realised how EASY it was!!! And I already had all of the ingredients, AND it was QUICK!! Sadly for James I had decided to use only one steak each night, so we shared... but it waaas enormous, and we filled up on bread...and this is terrible but we were out of veggies and I didn't manage to get to the shops, so that's literally what we ate: Steak Diane, and bread. Lucky the Steak Diane was good!! :) You should have seen James' face though, when I put one plate with a lone steak on the table between us. Haha.

Tonight, I think I will make Chop Suey with the third, and I will definitely make sure I stop at the shops and get some veggies :)

Any ideas for steak 4??

7 comments:

ClaireM said...

Braised steak and vegetables??? But don't ask me how to make it, I've just eaten it before, pretty sure your mum or dad could help out with that! Cook it on a BBQ, or you could make a Beef strongonoff??? Um yeah I'm out of ideas now and that could quite possibly be the fact that I don't cook....BUT very impressed with your new cooking skills and I can just imagine James' face when he realised that he had to share with you!
xx

Sandy M. said...

LOL (and I really do mean that!) - at James face when you placed the one plated steak on the table between you last night.
I'm also imagining close-ups of his eyes and your eyes, (very B-Grade old Western movie style), darting from the Lone Steak on the Lone Plate to the Competition for it on the other side of the table; each antagonist holding their Knife and Fork at the ready.....

You made Steak Diane!! Yay for you! There is Nothing you cannot accomplish in Life now :) (But you didn't say if you liked it..?)

Beef and veg. casserole?
:)

xoxo

Tammy Lorna said...

hahaha! I too saw the old B-grade Western when I read about James' face. Only my western also included a great score by Moriconi - and it definitely implied that you were about to be challenged to a dual...

No ideas for the steak - since you already had stir fry... steak and mushroom casserole?... lol! (Cook THAT and make it a movie - hehe)

Congratulations on the steak diane - job well done flabby-girl!

xo Tammy

Jillina Whittaker said...

Ohhh James I had to laugh but feel a little for him. I love to make schnitzel when i want meat to stretch. Basically all you do is bash the meat out as flat as you can. Cut into fairly equal portions. Then season your meat with salt (otherwise you need tomato sauce for flavour). Prepare 3 bowls with 1.Flour 2.Egg (whisked) 3.Dry breadcrumbs (cheap to buy). Coat meat in flour, then dip in egg, then in breadcrumbs. I redo egg then breadcrumbs if possible for extra crust. Heat oil and butter in pan (either or) and shallow fry your schnitzel. Make sure you have enough oil/butter to fry in otherwise crumbs get a little black. It's soo much better then bought schnitzel. Suprisingly the bread coating keeps my meat more moist. I love doing this with chicken.
Other ideas include fried rice (chopping steak up); beef wraps because you can bulk it up with salad.
Good luck Abby... I have not made Steak Dianne. Tell James I made pumpkin soup that smelt and tasted like cow. So steak and bread shared sounds good to me.

Felicity said...

Hi Abby! I didn't have your email so I thought I'd leave this comment here!! YOU WON OUR LITTLE GIVEAWAY! YAY! send me an email or comment on the 'winner' post and we'll get the book out to you asap!!!! So glad you stopped by and commented!

Felicity :)

Jess said...

Yay for you. i don't think I have tried this one yet. I wish you had a picture of James' face. That would have been priceless.

We should get together sometime and put together some meals?! Or maybe we should do a progressive dinner, where one of us does the entre, one of us does the dinner and a third person can do a dessert? Maybe Bethy once she is married? Good idea to remember!

Keep cooking good looking :)

Love you lots!
Jessima

Felicity said...

ps) I was laughing imagining your husbands face when you put the steak in front of him - how funny! :)