Day #362 - Marinated Steak

The newest addition to my culinary library is The Commonsense Kitchen cookbook.  It was given to me by a coworker.   This book is huge!   HUGE!    Over 500 recipes for familiar American "comfort foods," old-fashioned dishes, modern lighter dishes, and recipes for "self-sufficiency."   The recipes were developed at Deep Springs, a highly acclaimed organic farm, school, and working cattle ranch in the high desert of the Sierra Nevada.  In addition, there is a whole chapter designated for Kitchen Basics (culinary terms, common equipment, ingredients, measurements, etc).  I look forward to spending much time with this book in the year to come.

At the grocery store earlier this week, I was browsing the meat cases, and saw some thick beef loin strip steaks on sale.   Rather than just "winging it" in the kitchen, I decided to consult my culinary library.  SOMEWHERE in one of my cookbooks would be a great recipe for cooking strip steaks.   The first book I turned to was The Commonsense Kitchen.   In CK, I found a recipe for marinated steaks which sounded good.  Plus, I had the ingredients on hand, which was a bonus.   Since I was off work today, I had time to prepare the marinade and really let the steak get tender.

The recipe called for onion juice.  This was a new concept to me.   I pulled out my microplane and grated half a white onion until I had a bowl of pulp: 

To this onion pulp, I mixed a palmful of dried thyme, crushed black pepper, and a couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce.  I put the marinade and the steak in a Ziploc bag, then let it "hang out" in the fridge for the afternoon:

When it was time to prepare dinner, I removed the steak from the marinade and patted it dry with a paper towel.  I heated some olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat, then grilled the steak for about 3-4 minutes on each side.    I then removed the steak, and let it rest while I prepared my sauce.

To the skillet, I added a couple splashes of Pinot Noir and a couple splashes of beef stock, and scraped up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.   I added about 1/2 can of mushrooms and let this mixture simmer until the liquids had reduced, then spooned some over my steak. 

While all of this was going on, I had some broccoli florets and parsnip rounds roasting in a 375 degree oven.  I also reheated some leftover Au Gratin potatoes from Christmas.  

Here was my full meal: