I’ve been watching the Food Network lately, in particular the Worst Cooks in America show- to support Kat, someone I went to Jr High and High School with!

I’ve learned a bit watching this show.  Especially when it comes to plating your food.

For example, if you are making steak, potatoes and vegetables for dinner, you don’t separate them on your plate…

 

…you pile them all up on top of each other in the middle for that “gourmet effect”.  =o)

See the difference?

I make myself laugh sometimes. 

I’ve also noticed they do primarily ALL their cooking with Stainless Steel Skillets or Saute pans.  No Teflon coated stuff.  I am still madly in love with my cast-iron skillets and my cast-iron griddle on my range.  I almost never pull out my teflon stuff, unless I’m making an omelette.

So I had a dinner idea for one night this week- rib eye steaks with a side of scallops, roasted red potatoes and veggies.  Sounds delicious!

99% of the time I grill my steaks on the Traeger.  The other 1% of the time I cut the steak up in to smaller pieces to saute for something else.  I have ‘pan fried’ steaks only twice in my life.  I have broiled steaks in the oven only twice in my life.  Neither is my preferred flavor.  Especially when our steaks are elk, not beef.  Incredibly lean and the flavor can turn gamey in a heart beat.

So I looked up how to pan sear steaks.  Apparently you heat your oven to 500 degrees, plop a cast-iron skillet in it to get it nice and HOT.  In the meantime to you coat your room-temperature steaks with oil and rub salt and pepper into it.  When the skillet is hot, you take it out, put it on a HOT burner, toss the coated steak into the dry hot pan, top with a pat of butter- sear the first side (about 30 seconds), then flip and sear the other side (about 30 seconds).  Then flip again and put in the oven for 2 minutes, then flip again for another 2 minutes, then pull it out and let it rest.

SO, that’s what I did.  And the steaks were cooked to perfection. 

This was my dinner plate.  The kids would freak out if I piled everything up in the middle of the plate  =o)

I “grilled” the scallops and shrimp on the cast-iron center griddle of my range since they didn’t call for a lot of oil in the pan.  Man I love cooking on cast iron.

I tried making a bearnaise sauce from scratch again…second time.  Didn’t work, just like the first time.  For some reason I cannot get the butter to combine with the egg and wine reduction- it never blends, always separates.  Grrrrr.  From now on I will just buy a packet of “mix with water” fake stuff I guess.

We had Pesto Veggies….and I also tried a new recipe- Sliced Baked Potatoes.

The potatoes were a huge hit- so yummy.  The only ‘herb’ I added was some dried rosemary.  And I didn’t top with Parmesan cheese, just 1T of shredded cheddar jack cheese on the top of each one.  They were sooooo good.  I will never make a regular baked potato again- this was so easy and so easy and so….easy!