I've made a couple of steaks in the past week. If I recall correctly, this first picture was of a sirloin, a nice thick cut of meat. I did my usual addition of garlic, olive oil, salt, and grilling.

We also made a couple of delmonico steaks. This time I did the pan-searing method. You may recall from my pan-seared tuna recipe post that this method is great for flavor and bad for smoke detectors. We thought about this and decided the olive oil is largely to blame. It has a low smoke point. Well, we happen to also have some safflower oil, so I gave that a run this time. The smoking was definitely kept to a lower level, so it will certainly help there. However, safflower oil is definitely a different taste. It's certainly not bad, but I think the olive oil flavor is somewhat preferable. So my advice is to have a really good range hood and stick with the olive oil I guess. I said those are 2 steaks, but just so you know, I cooked them, took them out of the pan, let them rest, cut them open, and decided the centers were still cold. It was probably the best steak I've ever made, but we applied some fresh oil and tossed back in the halves until they were cooked to a more respectable medium.


Finally I made another starchy everything, this time with a single red turnip, a single sweet potato, and a couple regular russetts. I went with a very basic finish -- mashed (but not too much), salt, pepper, butter, milk, and fresh diced garlic. I could eat this on a regular basis.

In other news, I made some chicken piccata but failed to take any photos. We've also thrown out a couple of things- the last eggplant just sat in the fridge until we tossed it, along with a few aging carrots and peppers, and finally, 3 of the turnips-- they got really soft rather quickly. We didn't find a use for the cilantro (which makes me very sad), and I just attempted something with the now fairly wilted radicchio-- a quick pan-wilting (redundant, I know)-- the result was too bitter to eat. Only 2 apples left though, we're doing a good job on those. The cabbage is keeping well, and the squash and sweet potatoes would last for approximately forever I think, so we're not in a hurry on them. The crisper is starting to clear out.