the best intentions...

I needed to write a Halloween column for my glamorous and high-paying newspaper career.  I knew Halloween was really all about treats, and I also knew that I was not much of a sweet maker, so I headed to the grocery store to cast about for some ideas.  Milling about in the produce, I spotted the first fall crop of my favorite apples--Honeycrisp.  Unlike some apples, they aren't available all year long.  I don't know why.  Perhaps they don't store as well as some other apples.  Or they don't grow as many and they just sell out.  But there they were, calling to me.  I already had a great caramel recipe, so why not caramel apples.  I mean, how hard could it be?  I snapped up a couple of kinds of chocolate and some nuts for decorating my Halloween creations and headed home.

caramel, bubbling away

The caramel was beautiful and glossy.  I cooked it down, to make sure it would set up on the apples, let it cool a little, poured it in a bowl, stabbed sticks into my apples, and commenced with the dipping.

An hour later I had eight apples blobbed with uneven coats of caramel--some spots too thick, some spots too thin, and a sludgy pool of caramel forming at the bottom of every apple.  I had caramel on the counter, all over my hands, and stuck in my hair.  Forget dipping those sad confectioner's specimens in chocolate and nuts.  Forget putting a picture of those in the paper.  I didn't even think of taking a picture of them, though I wish I had, so I could show you just what a disaster they were.

I left them on the kitchen counter and went off to sit on the porch and think about what else I could do.  The very idea of tossing all of that tasty caramel stuck in my craw, and I certainly didn't want to toss those apples.  It occurred to me that the caramel was making its way down the sides of the apples anyway, so why not just help it along?  I swiped the caramel off the apples into a pan, thinned it with a bit of cream, and made a caramel dipping sauce.  I washed the apples and sliced them into little wedges.  There you have it.  Apples with caramel dipping sauce.  Worked for me.  But it did seem a bit boring.

What about those chocolates and nuts?  How about a Halloween bark?  I certainly didn't want to work too hard, after the apple debacle.  What could be more simple than some white chocolate colored orange, spread out and pressed with toasted nuts and dried apricots, and drizzled with dark chocolate.  In less than half an hour, I had my Halloween candy.

from disaster comes a pretty holiday treat

the rescued apples and caramel

I will never make caramel apples again...

great steak without breaking the bank

Sometimes I just crave a really nice steak, medium rare in the center, with a nice char on the outside from a sizzling hot grill.  Ribeye is usually my victim of choice, but it can be expensive, and frugality is the order of the day right now.  Still, I was tempted when I saw some particularly handsome ribeyes on sale for $6.99 a pound at my local grocer.  They jumped into my shopping cart unbidden.

When I got home, I stared at that package of steaks, thinking $11.00 for two steaks for a midweek meal seemed a bit over-the-top.  I needed a way to satisfy two people with just one of those babies, saving the other for some other adventure at stretching my beer budget and still having a taste of champagne.

I set one of the steaks out on a plate with some salt and pepper

sprinkled over it, waiting for inspiration

I know that steak looks like it should be big enough for two, but it isn't--not when you are feeding a hungry guy who could devour the whole thing by himself.  So, I started thinking about what was in the fridge and freezer.  A little poking around rooted out a couple of sesame-coated rolls in the freezer.  A trip through the fridge generated some arugula, sweet bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, and gruyere cheese.  I always have horseradish, mayo, and a few different mustards on hand.  A plan began to take shape, and it seemed perfect for a casual week-night dinner, loaded with flavor, and much lighter on the pocketbook than the typical meat-centric steak dinner.

First order of business--assemble and prep all of the ingredients.  I mixed a sauce of mayo, horseradish, and a dollop of grainy mustard to really set off that beef flavor.  I sliced onions, mushrooms, and sweet peppers for a vegetable element.  And I sliced a couple of slices of the flavorful gruyere.  I tend to like to cook with fairly strongly-flavored cheeses.  You can get all of that flavor for a small amount of cheese.

mise en place for the steak sandwiches

veggies, in a small amount of olive oil, go in the pan to wilt and brown--

still loving that French steel pan

While the veggies cooked, I took the steak out to the hot grill.  I came back in, split the buns, smeared both inside surfaces with the sauce, and took the buns and the cheese outside.  By then it was time to flip the steak.  That size steak only takes about 4-5 minutes a side to come to medium rare.  Essential is another 10 minute rest for the juices to distribute through the meat, and for the steak to finish cooking.  The internal temp will continue to rise after the steak is off the grill.  Since I wanted a final temp of about 125 degrees.  I took the steak off at about 110, tented it with foil, and let it sit while I prepped the bread. 

An aside on resting meat -- all meat.  I am an iconoclast when it comes to bs admonishments in the kitchen.  A bunch of the crap you read just ain't so, like saying that searing meat seals in juices.  That was disproved years ago, but you still hear it from chefs all the time, both on cooking shows and in cookbooks.  Sear your meat to make it taste good, but don't kid yourself, you aren't sealing in anything.  On the other hand, resting meat does seems to do something to keep the juices from running out all over the cutting board, and keep the meat juicier and more flavorful.  Sure, some juice still runs out, but not near as much as when you cut it immediately.  I've seen it with my own eyes more than once.  You can test the principle yourself, but you'll sacrifice dinner for the experiment.

Bread grilled outside gets wonderfully crispy, with great char marks along the surface, so it is worth the few minutes time it takes to prepare the rolls that way.  Cut-side down for a couple of minutes produced the desired marks.  I then flipped the bread, layered on a thin layer of cheese on the bottom side, and closed the lid.  Another couple of minutes produced a crisp crust and melted cheese.  Watch closely.  Thing can go from crisp to burnt very quickly.  Looking out for your carb intake?  Wrap the same ingredients in a low-carb wrap that has been warmed on the grill.

Back inside, everything was ready for assembly.  

I cut the steak on the bias in 1/4" strips, for maximum tenderness.  Over the cheese, I put down a handful of crisp, peppery arugula (my favorite sandwich green), a generous portion of steak, and a big spoonful of the sauteed veggies.

the one thing I would do next time is drizzle a little

more of the sauce over the meat

The steak sandwich was crisp, crunchy, loaded with meaty steak flavor, and had a nice compliment of silky vegetables.  A perfect way to satisfy a steak craving without breaking the bank.