Adapt and Overcome

Dinner was a "make do" affair, this evening. Was expecting to make a nice steak salad. Had even pulled a fresh cherokee purple tomato from the garden for the purpose. Alas, after FOOM-starting the grill, I discovered that the steak was not a "salad steak" (typically a lean and/or tougher cut of meat). No, what I found, waiting for me in the fridge, was a buffalo ribeye steak.

Don't get me wrong, a ribeye is a fine cut of meat. Even one made from bison is still a nicely marbled, buttery piece of meat. But, it's not a salad steak. No. All that lovely marbling and lovely, buttery texture makes it a feature steak. It's a steak that you center a meal around. It's not a steak that you slice up thin and scatter through a larger, overall dish.

So, salad plans dashed, I had to make do. The grill was already starting to warm up, so, I couldn't make a proper baked potato. Didn't matter, we didn't have proper baking potatoes in the house, at any rate. However, we did have some mid-sized white potatoes. So, I took out a paring knife, stabbed it a few (dozen) times and tossed it into the microwave to "bake". The garden had just yielded up a big crop of serranos and other peppers, so, I grabbed a handful of those. I took the just-picked cherokee red and cut into thin slices and salted them. Donna had a bunch of mushrooms from this weekend's market, so, she chopped those up and sauteed them.

In all, for a "make do" meal, it was rather good. And, for being, essentially a "meat and potatoes" meal, it was nicely accented with various shades of reds and greens. I slathered the "baked" potato with butter and sour cream, topped the steak with the mushrooms, cut up some of the peppers and sat down to eat. Donna even snagged me a nice malbec to go with it.