Create Every Day

Tonight we had a big old steak we found at Ralphs in the “Manager’s Specials” section for half price.  I pan fried the steak with salt and pepper while Dore cooked up a heaping pile of asparagus under the broiler and sautéed some frozen mushroom fettuccine noodles. To compliment the meal, we popped open a half-sized bottle of Tolosa 2006 Pinot Noir that we found at the local market.  (We saw the bottle and had to buy it: The first bottle of wine we ever had together was a little mini bottle of Tolosa Pinot Noir at the local Italian restaurant in San Luis. :-))

So how did it turn out?  Very, very nice.  The steak came out as a very nice medium rare.  I don’t think I could have cooked it any better.  Unfortunately the meat had quite a bit of connective tissue that made it tough to chew.  I did have a couple of bites that were definitely melt-in-your-mouth, however, and those were pure heaven.

We tried something a bit wild with the asparagus by putting a bit of balsamic vinegar over them right at the end, but it mostly ended up adding a hint of sour to the veggies that, while not unpleasant, didn’t really do anything to enhance them.  So we’ll probably skip that in the future.  But that’s the fun of cooking: every meal is an experiment.

The pasta was, as always with Trader Joe’s frozen goods, as good as you can ask for in a pre-packaged food.  Surprisingly good, really.

But enough of that… now, on to desert.  Dore tells me she’s got a soufflé planned out.  Needless to say, I’m very, very excited.