As a part of the #apieformikey celebration of loved ones, I made The Beloved a special meal to eat before the pie. We shared the pie with our wonderful neighbors, but dinner was for us alone. We enjoyed a lovely piece of grass-fed, pasture-raised, happy New York strip (his name was Clement) with roasted garlic compound butter, roasted potatoes with herbes de Provence and a mixed vegetable succotash. It was wonderful. Plus, we ate by candlelight, which was quite lovely as well.
I cooked both of the steaks that The Beloved had brought home, but we ended up just sharing one, all cut up Fancy-Like on our plates. So, that left one guy to eat later. I also ended up with about 1 ounce of leftover compound butter and enough potatoes and mixed vegetables to fill a couple of hearty omelets.
We’ll have the omelets tomorrow for supper, but today… Friends, today we were Starving after going shopping with nothing but Smoothie in our tummies. We began to discuss In Earnest what to have when we got home about 10 minutes from the house. And then, I got distracted. By the McDonald’s, of all places! And I said, “Beloved, sometimes I just want a Big Mac.” Right out loud like that. But neither of us can actually justify going into the McDonald’s and, with our wallets, voting Yes to nasty beef from sad cows. So then I said, “We should just make our own Big Macs with happy beef and good bread and vibrant lettuce. And special sauce.”
And then, I knew what we could do with the leftover New York strip: Cheese Steaks!!
The Standard cheese steak, I hear, is built on a big old white hot-doggish-type bun with a bunch of kinda wet shaved beef, caramelized onions and Cheese Whiz. My version included the lovely multi-grain bread that I had just purchased, Clement II, onions caramelized in the leftover compound butter, and grated cheddar.
And, I am here to tell you It Was Good. Very, very good.
I made them open-faced because I knew the bread wouldn’t hold up to Rough Handling, so we ate them with a knife and fork, and let me tell you, this was no sammich made for a standard run-of-the-mill ball park or cheese steak stand. This sammich was worthy of a Sparkling Unicorn Arena in the Sky!
Happy Philly Cheese Steaks, Starring Clement II
No real recipe to speak of–just caramelize onions then add your thinly sliced beef, slather some mustard on your bread and then top with the beef-onion mixture. Sprinkle some cheddar over all. I did add a couple of grinds of black pepper and a Mere Whisper of Himalayan Pink Salt right before serving. And there you have it. Prepare to be Wowed by the Sparkling Unicorn Awesomeness of it all.
I am absolutely still planning on making Big Macs my way, so stay tuned for that. Have a lovely day.
