Ewww, steaks!

I've fallen off the eating wagon.

With Scott on the road, my inspiration wanes and I tend to drift more to the kid's way of things.  Instead of fresh veggies and good meat, we have more mac and cheese and spaghetti.  In going away from good habits, I've not only noticed my waist line increasing, but my attitude slipping.

So today saw a new leaf turn over and we're back in the game.

Now the problem with officially declaring this was that I had basically no food for dinner.  Stuff had gone bad, we hadn't made it to the store, blah blah blah.  So I started a pot of split pea soup with a ham bone after breakfast, pulled a couple steaks out of the freezer and promised that I'd pick up one more vegetable at the store when I went today.  (And I did...corn on the cob.  I swear, nothing else says summer to me.)

Having steaks always brings up good memories for me.  Growing up, we had an uncle that was a farmer and raised and butchered cattle, so we were never short on beef.  In fact, I didn't know that having steaks was considered a upper class meal until after I left home.  It was just something that we had.  

Scott and I hadn't been dating too long when I invited him over for dinner at my apartment.  We hung out there a lot anyway and I'm sure had had dinner together already, but I wanted this to be nice so I bought steaks.  

Now, the softball team (I was an assistant coach) ran the concession stand at the time during football games and I manned the grill.  We served chicken, hamburgers, brats, hotdogs...you know, all stuff you want cooked pretty thoroughly.  So I didn't really think twice before heating my little charcoal grill up and then burning those bad boys to a crisp.

In fact it wasn't until I saw my handsome boyfriend trying to smile at me while gnawing on his tough t-bone that I realized that you didn't have to cook steaks through.  In fact, some people liked them RARE.  Oh, I was horrified and embarrassed and he was ever the gentlemen and told me he liked them like that...burnt...and that it was a wonderful dinner.  (Side note:  he likes his steak still mooing.  And he married me anyway!!)

So skip forward plenty of years and I've now pretty much mastered our steaks.  What helps profusely is the fancy new grill we bought at Lowes last year on discount after season, where all the burners work and cook evenly.  I rub the steaks down with a clove of garlic, drizzle olive oil on them and rub in salt and pepper.  Then I cook one side about 4-5 minutes and the other side 2-3, depending on how thick they are. 

I set the hot food on the table and it was just the perfect evening.  We had the windows open and the warm, Spring air was coming in.  I bought some cheap, pink carnations at the store and put them on the table in my good vase.  The children were listening, actually washing their hands when we asked them to...

...and then they walked into the dining room.

"RACHEL!!  Come look at this!!"  Elizabeth yelled.

"What is it?"  asked Rachel.

"Just look."  said Elizabeth.  (Now, I was still in the kitchen so I could only hear this, but I'm imagining her pointing with a look of sheer disgust.)

"EWWWWW!  STEAKS!!"  They both said in unison.  

Lovely.

So, as it turns out, neither one ate the "ewwwww steaks" or what turned out to be "yuck soup".  But they did have two ears of corn apiece and then ran outside to jump on the trampoline while Scott and I ate the rest of their steaks.  

At least they were cooked right.

Oh, and the boy liked steaks.  Go figure.  :)

Happy Sunday eve, my friends!