Sweet and Sour in Boston

Not much has been going on, which means not many new posts. Work's been keeping me busy and having a bit of a cold takes my appetite down. Also, wedding planning is taking some of our free time too.

Anyway, on Friday night we had a few friends over for steak night. I wanted to take a lot of pics, but once the wine started flowing I kinda forgot about it. Here are a couple of pics though:




That first pic is of a sirloin as I sear one side. As mentioned before, I took this method of cooking steak from Alton Brown. It's the easiest way to cook steak and one of the tastiest. Basically you set your cast iron skillet in a 500 degree oven. I like to put it in once I turn on the oven, allowing the skillet to get up to a might high temperature. Whenever the oven is preheated, I give my steak a nice drizzle of oil (I used to use EVOO, but realized that the smoking point was too low, so now use vegetable oil) and sprinkle on some kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. I'll also add cumin and Montreal Steak Seasoning on both sides because I really like what they bring to the table. I try not to over-season though, because the steak should speak for itself. Then I take the cast iron out and place it over high heat on the stove top. I sear both sides for about 30 seconds each, then throw it in the oven for 3-4 minutes on each side. That gets me medium rare, but it really depends on the thickness of the cut.

I also made some of my famous spicy asparagus. These are really easy to make. Just toss the asparagus onto a saute pan over medium high heat. Toss in a few tablespoons of butter and kosher salt and black pepper. Then a few drops of habenaro sauce and cook until done...about 7 minutes. Really easy, and always a crowd pleaser. (Unless if I make it too spicy, then it can get bad...)

Our friend Jen brought a big salad and Annie brought some fried cheese balls with olives in the middle. Noah and Brooke brought some wine. And Cynthia brought some amazing brownies for dessert. Joey didn't bring anything, but that's ok because in the past he's provided so much that we'll let it pass this one time.

Overall, a damn good time. 2 sirloin shell steaks, 1 NY strip, and 1 rib eye were consumed. 2 large batches of homemade potato chips and 1 bunch of asparagus, along with some hummus and vegetable dip were also consumed. Along with 7 bottles of wine, and we had ourselves a mighty fine night.