Sunday Night Steaks

Today I decided to have some steak (chili would have taken too long). I kept changing my mind throughout the day by putting the steaks from the freezer to the fridge and back to the freezer. So when I decided to actually do it, they were semi-frozen. So, I defrosted them by placing them in room-temperature water for about 20 min.

To season it, I used some sherry wine, soy sauce, steak seasoning and some oil. I let it sit for 5 minutes as the frying pans heated up.

I decided to cook the steaks on medium heat so that the outside wouldn't be all burned while the inside would be raw. 

As for veggies, I stir-fried some asparagus with salt and ginger, adding water after to fully cook them.

Here's the steak after flipping...

And being held on its side to cook the fatty part..

And voila! Plated with the asparagus and a piece of olive bread at the back :)

It was more red than it looks like here, but I don't mind because it wasn't chewy. Perfectly seasoned, cooked in less than 10 minutes. Best part is the 2nd steak saved for tomorrow's meals :)

Of Steaks and Candy Apples

Trying to fix my sleep schedule is not easy. Especially when you nap from 4-6pm. When I woke up, I knew I wouldn't have enough time to cook the steaks I defrosted overnight and get to class by 7pm, so I grabbed a candy apple that a friend got for me earlier today (thanks dude!). I'll just present the following photos in succession. 

And done.

Nothing like waking up and enjoying a candy apple :P

After starving throughout class (granola bars are a poor excuse of sustenance...especially in place of dinner), I decided to marinate two steaks with oyster sauce and some cooking wine. For veggies, I chopped up a red, orange, and yellow bell pepper, an onion, garlic, and sautéed them together, finally adding chicken broth to reduce. To keep with the steak flavor profile, I added some oyster sauce to the veggies as well. I pan-seared the steaks, toasted some bread, puréed some of the bell pepper reduction as a fun sauce, and dug in :)

A nice medium steak in the middle.

Best part is, the 2nd steak and the remaining veggies are packed for lunch tomorrow.

How I Did It:

Veggies:

1. On medium-high heat, sauté onions, add salt. Once browned, throw in bell peppers, garlic, stir occasionally for 5 min.

2. Add about 1/3 can of chicken broth and some oyster sauce

3. Let it reduce.

4. I actually threw this mixture into the steak pan after taking the steaks out so the veggies would pick up some caramelized steak flavor.

Steak:

1. Marinade steaks and bring them to room temperature (just leave them out, ~10 min).

2. On high heat, sear steaks for 4 min, I leave the lid on so they cook inside

3. Flip and cook for 4 min

4. Take them out of the pan and let them rest for a little.

What happens when you run out of fresh food?

So the last time I went to the grocery store was September 29th, so I've been filling up on Subway, campus food, generally unhealthiness, and frozen/canned food at home. It's been crazy with exams (I just wrote one yesterday, one this morning, and one more tonight!) and I'm sure everyone has those stints with other things that make food less of a priority. So, what did I do? 

I bought some canned diced tomatoes flavoured with garlic and olive oil and so I made myself a bruschetta with defrosted olive bread. I wish I still had cilantro to top that one off..

For one of my dinners, I had a steak dinner, and every ingredient was from the freezer. I still didn't manage to cook the steak fully through without adding water at the end so it wouldn't burn...gotta turn the temperature down next time and cook it for longer (my new stove is super-powerful). I marinated this steak with some steak spice and finally with BBQ sauce at the end (thank you Ribfest :D)

For the veggies I just boiled them in some chicken broth for flavour.

A nice pink on the inside :) mmm.....

And finally to today, this was my meal post-workout. The smoothie's got frozen mangoes, frozen raspberries, orange juice, and vanilla protein powder. My soup was also from the freezer, boiled in half water, half chicken broth. I modified this one so that I'd throw in the scallops, corn, and peas last. Before I threw in all the veggies together but had to wait for the beets and sweet potato to soften, and so the peas and corn would overcook.

 I'm looking forward to grocery shopping tomorrow and then back home for Thanksgiving for some delicious home food! Hope you have a great Thanksgiving!

The Weekend Meals aka Leftovers

So I finally cooked an omelette correctly (I turned down my super-powerful stove to medium for most of the cooking time). I still got to learn how to flip them over in one piece though. This picture is a little deceiving because I use two whole eggs and I add egg white...so it's quite a big meal. This one was a mushroom and broccoli omelette I believe. 

I began to finish the fresh food stored in my fridge, and that included shredded chicken (how I miss thee), baby carrots, and leftover rice. I threw it all together and added barbecue sauce (can't beat the Ribfest-bought sauces) and it didn't turn out too bad. Whenever I eat a dish, I try to eat the stuff I don't like first (aka carrots) and the stuff I like last, so I can enjoy it. In hindsight, I should've chopped up the carrots and softened them with heat for longer.

I didn't feel like prepping any meat for this meal, so I grabbed cottage cheese for the protein, and for the awesomeness that is cottage cheese. I suppose I got all artistic with this one...makes up for the butchered omelette presentation.

Still having problems with steak on the stovetop...it burns too fast when I have it on high...but it feels so weird to be cooking steak on medium. The middle was still raw after 2 min/side on high so I ended up deglazing the pan with water for about another 3 min. Added sauteed mushroom/onion/cilantro (have you heard how much I love cilantro? and I'm out right now D: ) and olive bread from the St. Lawrence Market back in Toronto. Also running out of good bread. Who thought it could be so depressing?

Finally, we come to tonight's dinner. I didn't want to think too much so I grabbed two cans of tuna, a can of Campbell's mushroom soup, a bag of snap peas and spaghetti. Softened the peas in mushroom soup + half can of water, combined, voila (I'm getting really lazy with the descriptions aren't I...well its not that hard....seriously). Made enough for lunch as well (other half of steak turned into a sandwich today). This is quite an important point: double your dinner portion for lunch the next day - less cooking, cleaning, more How I Met Your Mother. 

Thanks if you read this far!