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Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Tuscan Steak: Recipe


Tonight was one of those nights - you know the one where you start to panic at 4:45 p.m. at work because you need to finish a meeting within the next few minutes so you can race home to cook dinner before the family gets divided up? My husband and son go off to baseball at 6:00 p.m. and I walked in at 5:30, raced around trying to get dinner together before the little guy left. Well as he ate left-overs from the night before, (which was not tonight's dinner), I realized that I can't keep this up. Going forward: the rules are changing in this house with regard to meals and sports - we'll eat together as a family after they return. Thanks to my local moms for the wake-up call.

Unrelated to the craziness that is our life during week nights, I decided to change course on the International Theme for this evening.  Recently I made an Argentinian steak (Argentinian Steak) and it was awesome so this time I thought I'd try my hand at a Tuscan-Style steak. Most often it's called Florentine Steak and it's made slightly differently than this - but not by much, really.  I used simple ingredients and finally when we ate the steak, grilled vegetables and the tomato and mozzarella salad, everyone was pleased.  The key to the simplicity of this meal was the barbecue. A charcoal grill makes a real impact on the flavor of your meat - naturally, you can achieve great results from gas...but I prefer charcoal. Over the past five years, we have stopped using any lighter fluid to ignite our coals - instead we use a metal chimney to ignite the coals. It's amazing and I never have to smell or taste lighter fluid on my food!

To round out our meal, I added grilled eggplant (which my husband informed me I overcooked by a lot) and peppers along with a basil, tomato and mozzarella salad. If the weather had been about 20 degrees warmer, we would have eaten al fresco!

Tuscan-Style Steak
serves 5/6

2 1/4 lb. Bone-in Rib Eyes (2 one+ pounders)
2 tsp. olive oil
2 Tablespoons Kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
1 lemon, sliced into halves and then into quarters

Prepare a grill (or use your broiler pan indoors) so it is very hot (your hand shouldn't be able to stay put for more than 5 seconds about 2 inches from the grate).

Slather the olive oil on both sides of the steaks and sprinkle the salt and pepper all over on both sides. Grill the steaks about 7 minutes per side. When you remove the steaks, squeeze two quarters of lemon over each steak. Allow the meat to rest about 3-5 minutes before serving.

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