Tag Archives | steak

Steak, Mushroom, & Blue Cheese Foldit

By Rob Carroll on July 21, 2017 in

This flatbread sandwich takes a page out of a steakhouse’s playbook, with juicy sautéed mushrooms, melty blue cheese, and steak, steak, and more steak. I ask you: what’s not to love about that? Oh, don’t forget a little leaf of bitter radicchio, just to add some crunch and offset the richness of everything else.

Since I’ve been growing radicchio in my garden this year, every time I’d visit, I couldn’t help but notice the plants just weren’t turning that deep shade of ruby red I’ve always loved. Instead, the meaty leaves were a very intentional pale green, even though they felt and tasted like radicchio.

I called up my best friend Michele, who was generous enough to share the seeds with me this spring. As it happened, the seeds she planted never came up in her garden, so that wasn’t much help in solving the mystery. Then she sent me a picture of the seed packet she had ordered. It turns out that this particular variety of radicchio was a little known type, Castelfranco, an heirloom plant, known for its…pale green leaves. (The ruby red variety you commonly see is called “Chioggia,” in case anyone wonders.)

Now that we knew what was growing, I decided to pick as much as I could before the lettuce bolted, or went to seed. What a meaty, thick leaf! And bitter, too, just like other kinds of radicchio I’ve tried.

We had so much, I had to add some to our impromptu dinner last night, made from leftovers from the weekend: a flatbread sandwich piled high with all the decadent flavors my better half loves. Don’t get me wrong, I love a stinky blue cheese as much as he does, and Cambazola melts so wonderfully that it’s a shoe-in for this steak recipe.

Run-of-the-mill button mushrooms can be sautéed in water or broth and added to salads, wraps, pizzas, all through the week, so those giant boxes you see at the store needn’t be intimidating. Just cook ’em up and save them for the week.

Sometimes, there’s nothing more satisfying than a sandwich, and a whole grain Foldit makes quite a nice sandwich indeed, turning leftovers into a gourmet meal in almost no time at all. We use a grill, grill pan, or a panini press to grill our sammies, depending on our mood, the time we have, or if it’s raining out. Nothing will get in the way of our flatbread sandwich hunger.

-Amy at Flatout

Steak Fajita Pizza

By Rob Carroll on May 16, 2017 in

There’s a Mexican place near me where my mom loves to eat, thankfully. My mom is very picky when it comes to restaurants, especially, for some reason, Mexican restaurants. Either the portions are too small, or she could make a much better margarita,(she’s a connoisseur) or the music is too loud, or something else altogether. My mom especially prefers restaurants which serve portions so huge, she can take them home and eat the leftovers for at least a couple meals afterwards. Naturally, finding a place that does that is tricky, especially with rising food costs. It can be challenging to find a place that, in her more than 70 years of dining out, will please her. The better half and I jokingly call it the “LOL phenomenon” (or, “little old lady”) but shhh! please don’t tell her this!

Generally, my better half and I invite her over to bypass the sometimes frustrating decision of where to eat out. That way, too, we get to be in complete control of the margaritas, which is a great thing! But if we’re feeling like Mexican food, we can all agree on one place, right around the corner. We order a huge plate of family style steak fajitas and go to town, literally! Peppers, onions, strips of steak, all served up on homemade tortillas. In a word: delish.

I started making this flatbread recipe using leftover bits and bobs of the fajitas that would come home with us, but eventually, we started inviting my mom over to make this flatbread from scratch, because it tasted so good. All we really have to do is sauté everything up and bake it on a flatbread; it’s ready by the time the first round of margaritas is finished.

Fajitas, love, and LOL,

-Amy at Flatout

Steak Wrap with Caramelized Onions

By Rob Carroll on March 7, 2017 in

I think I may have mentioned before how much my better half loves red meat, steak in particular. The first sunny day we had this winter, he was in his coat, dusting off the grill, stocking the coal bin, and sharpening his tongs. He’s a grill fanatic, and he’s very good at it, fortunately for me. Whereas I have trouble with telling if stuff is cooked properly, resulting in wildly under-or over-cooked meat, he seems to have an innate sense of when to pull the grub off of the flames so it’s perfect every time. It is only one of the reasons I love him so!

We use flatbread to make delicious wraps and pizzas, inspired by our favorite higher-calorie meals. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, which is what I keep in mind when I’m recreating these recipes. Lean cuts of steak can be tasty and part of a healthy eating pattern, like when it’s used in this recipe.

We caramelize onions with little more than water, which yields the most tender, rich, and sinful tasting accompaniment to your slices of grilled steak. It’s a match made in heaven! You won’t even miss the butter most chefs use, I promise. All you have to do is slice up a couple onions, grab a non-stick skillet, spray it with a little cooking spray, and sauté them, stirring frequently, adding a bit of water to the pan to deglaze it and brown the onions. Just add water, stir, then keep adding water each time the pan gets dry until the onions are brown and rich looking. It’s super easy and an ingenious trick for lighter caramelized onions.

The next time you have some leftover steak, put a pin in this flatbread recipe so you can make it when you get home. You and your personal caveman will be glad you did!

-Amy at Flatout

Skirt Steak Tostadas for Two

By Rob Carroll on February 6, 2017 in

So, I’m getting a lot of emails with suggestions for Valentines gifts: perfume companies, chocolate companies, jewelry ideas. And of course, flowers. But what do you get….a guy? It’s sort of an age old dilemma. Well, at least as age old as Valentines Day itself, which isn’t all that old, considering…still. For me, it’s a difficult gift time. Socks seem boring.

There’s a little Belgian chocolate place up the road from me that makes super lovely, very special chocolates that you can select and assemble together in boxes to give as gifts. But the problem with buying my better half chocolate is, unlike me, he shares. What to do?

Then there’s the issue of dinner. As a restaurant server for many years, going out to eat on the dreaded “V.D.” as we called it in the industry, was verboten. Everyone had to work, no matter what. Whole dining rooms would be broken up into little tables of two for a Noah’s ark style procession of diners who seemed to only pretend to be romantic, out of duty, just for the night. Maybe it’s all those years of taking care of people like that, but I’d rather stay home and be romantic with my true love. Over a bottle of wine, and maybe, because I live him so much, a steak!

Guys love meat, meat, and more meat. So stay in this year and grill up some steak tostadas using skirt steak you marinate over night beforehand. These flatbread tostadas are easy to make together, and share with some wine, beer, whatever. And there’s still room for a piece or two of chocolate, if you absolutely gotta have it. Here’s to love, chocolate, and steak!

-Amy at Flatout

Tag Archives | steak

Steak, Mushroom, & Blue Cheese Foldit

Steak Fajita Pizza

Steak Wrap with Caramelized Onions

Skirt Steak Tostadas for Two

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