Been a while since I did a segment on food, but last night I stumbled upon (and modified) a few recipes that turned out particularly well.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera handy as we were in a hurry to eat… so if I make this again in the near future, I promise to snap a few piccies of the finished product.

Red Hot Pepper Steak:

• 2ea. steak portions, preferably ¾lbs. - 1lbs. each of a higher quality cut with prime or better quality marbling.
• 4 Tbsp. of butter (half a stick)
• cooking oil
• ¼ cup of unbleached wheat flour (you may want to use upwards of a ½ cup, but anything more than that and you’ll be throwing away more flour than you’ll use)
• ¼ tsp. ground black pepper
• 2 medium size cloves of garlic
• ¼ cup of Holland House Marsala wine
• ¼ cup of cooking sherry
• ¼ tsp. ground chili pepper or hot pepper
• ¼ tsp. paprika
• ¼ tsp. sea salt
• dash of oregano
• 1-2 thin (¼”) slices of fresh lemon
• ½ red pepper
• 1 fresh basil leaf (or about 2-4 Tbsp. of dried minced basil)
• 4 oz. Baby Bella (Crimini) mushrooms, thinly sliced (¼” or thinner)

And:

1ea. 16 oz. Tupperware container/re-used large Cool-Whip container or something similar…

To start with, dice up or crush the two peeled garlic cloves and add into a small mixing bowl with the sherry and the Marsala wine. Mince the basil if needed, and add that to the garlic/wine mix. Set aside for later.

Take the steaks, and trim off any large glops of fat and set those aside for the soup (discussed later).

In the Tupperware or similar container, mix in the unbleached wheat flour, salt, pepper, chili pepper or hot pepper, paprika, and oregano; seal the lid of the container and shake thoroughly to mix this stuff evenly. I prefer to use a resealable container because it seems to work better for me and is cheaper (and more carbon-friendly/oil-saving, for those of you who care about that sort of thing) and besides all that, I find it a lot easier to pick up meat from inside the box than fumbling around with a plastic shaking bag, to say nothing of the clean up later on.

You make wish to cut the meat up into smaller portions here depending upon the number of folks you’ll be serving; otherwise, drop each large piece into the “shaking box” and shake accrodingly. The steaks should be lightly coated on all sides when done, though you may need to dredge the sides if the cuts are particularly thick.

Set the coated steaks aside, or just leave them in the box for now.

At this point, you may want to start preparing the onions for the French Onion soup - slicing one large white or green onion into ¼” slices or thinner across the grain. You may find it easier to bisect the onion longitudinally (with the grain) once to give yourself a flat surface to brace the onion halves for faster, accurate slicing.

As long as you got the knife out, slice up the red pepper half into ¼” slices as well. along with the mushrooms and the 1-2 lemon slices, and the butter. Set all these aside for now, except for the butter, lemon and oil:

Coat the bottom of a large skillet with oil (you don’t need a lot, just enough to barely coat the bottom) and melt the butter over low heat, allowing the molten butter to “bubble out”. Squeeze the lemon slices into the butter and add them in for a little extra “zing”.

Once the butter has melted and become more or less indistinguishable from the oil, add the steaks and cook over medium heat for about 8-10 min. per side. After the first 8-10min. flip, add in the mushrooms, and the wine/garlic mix, making sure to scatter the mushrooms in between the steaks… add the red peppers on top of the steaks and cover for the last five minutes

French Onion Soup

The soup is a bit easier ingredients-wise:

• 1 large green or white onion, sliced thin (¼”slices)
• ¼ cooking oil
• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
• ¼ tsp. ground black pepper
• 1 quart box of “Pacific Coast French Soup Base” (if you want to cheat a little, otherwise: )
• 4 cups of beef broth
• 2-4 slices of hard-crust bread (French bread preferably) or ½ cup of large croûtons
• ½ of shredded swiss or mozzarella cheese
• Optional: Any glops of beef fat trimmed from the steaks

Put the oil, onion slices, brown sugar, and pepper in a pot on medium heat; stirring often until the onions are caramelized. Add beef fat glops if desired. This should take about 15-20 min.

Add broth/soup base, and bring to a boil on high heat.

Set oven rack to closely accommodate 2-4 oven-proof soup bowls; ladle soup into bowls to about ¾ capacity, float the bread or (croûtons) topped with the shredded cheese for 3-5 minutes or until cheese is evenly melted and bubbly.

Enjoy with glasses of a nice red wine, perhaps a Merlot or Shiraz, or perhaps a cranberry & seltzer cocktail.