Sucky steaks

Tonight's Menu

• grilled NY strip steaks
  
• potato-onion packets
  
• green salad "bar"
  

Oh dudes. I hate it when a good idea goes all wrong in the execution.

It started out okay. I brought a couple of thick, gorgeous NY strip steaks to room temperature. I mashed up a large garlic clove in my mortar and pestle with a little EVOO and let it steep for several minutes, then smeared the resulting garlicky goodness over both sides of the steaks. I sprinkled them with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. I slapped them on the grill. I wasn't happy with the lack of color they picked up on the outside, and so ... I overcooked them. OH THE HUMANITY. Or bovine-osity, or whatever. They came out medium-well. DH was perfectly happy and thought they were delicious, because he likes his steaks grey in the middle. But y'all know me -- I like mine STILL MOOING. So I was not happy. Argh. I just do NOT have the hang of grilling steaks outdoors. From now on, I'm sticking with my IKEA grill pan on the stovetop. That lets me sear them and still keep them nice and rare-ish in the middle. Lesson learned.

Somehow, in the course of overcooking the steaks, I managed to UNDERcook the potato-onion packets. I sliced up some red-skinned potatoes and a nice sweet onion as usual, then layered them with bits of real butter, salt and pepper in a piece of heavy-duty foil before folding it into a packet. I slapped that sucker on the grill as soon as I lit it, like I always do, letting it cook while the grill warmed up for the steaks and removing it after the steaks were done. The potatoes were STILL crunchy in the middle, and the onions did not get as tender as I like. I ended up having to finish this dish in the microwave. ARGH!

At least the salad was good! Mixed greens from the CSA (including baby arugula, which I am LOVING), sliced baby carrots and mixed cherry/grape tomatoes from the supermarket, and raw baby peas FROM THE GARDEN! This was my first actual produce harvest of the year. SO exciting! Raw peas are SO sweet and yummy. They're like candy, I swear. Okay, maybe not like candy. But they're REALLY good!