Today I made myself steak and potatoes. I had some steak that was defrosted and I hadn’t thought of anything cool to do with them yet so I figured a simple steak and potato meal would be sufficient.

First I started preheating the oven while I wrapped a couple potatoes in some aluminum foil. Then I liberally salted and peppered the meat. I want the meat to sit in its own juices for a moment. A couple cap-fulls of vermouth and a splash of worcestershire probably won’t hurt the flavor.

After throwing the tubers into the oven, I tabbed about two almost three tablespoons of butter into my frying pan. I do not fear fats and oils. You should not either. The idea was to sear the steak and bring the internal temperature up to par as quickly as possible. From prior experiences we had learned that the quality of this steak was quite atrocious. I was hoping that cooking it in this manner would help to avoid the nasty chewy low quality beef flavor that we experienced from previous adventures with this meat.

I left the steak on each side long enough to create a deep brown color. Because the smoking point of the butter wasn’t as high as I needed, I didn’t quite get the color I was looking for. The ideal color would have been the brown you get just before it starts to caramelize on the outside.

After getting some color on both sides I started preparation of the onion. I only had half of a red onion left. About medium sized. This was all I really needed so that worked out fine.

The plan now was to allow that internal temperature to stabilize so I needed a few more minutes with the stove but I didn’t want all the heat going directly into the outside layer of meat. I dumped the onions into the pan and I love the sound that a pan makes when you throw in something fresh. It is one of my most favorite things to hear.

I love the bitter taste of onions so I did not want them cooking too long. Just long enough to soften them a little. So while those were cooking I spread, liberally, some stone ground mustard onto each side of the steaks and cooked both sides for another minute give or take. The smells coming out of my kitchen at this point were making me salivate.

This is where I turned off both the oven and the stove so as to allow the potatoes to cool off and let the frying pan cool a bit before taking the food out. I have this thing with leaving empty hot dishes on my stove. They need to cool off before I make them empty.

The potatoes received just a little bit of salt, butter, pepper, and a topping of ranch chip dip. I don’t know if it is really ranch or not, it is pink, but it came from my fridge and the container says ranch so I assume it is. It almost tastes southwest.

Anyway, I pigged out and ate a steak and a potato and then another half of the steak before I was engorged. Now I am sitting here staring at and smelling my food wishing that I could eat the rest. I really need to learn how to cook single servings.