All y’all married folks…
Did you have a hard time blending food-wise? We’re almost a decade in and we’re still on the struggle-bus.
Look. I LOVE to cook…. I have since I was a kid. In college, our apartment would constantly have people in it… all there to eat food that college kids usually only got at home.
Heck, one time my dad was pumping gas and ran into a client. His son and I were both in school at Virginia Tech at the time, and despite our dads knowing each other for YEARS we didn’t meet until college. Client says, “So I hear my kid won’t leave your daughter’s apartment… (Color in Daddy’s face drains, he is a Southern daddy after all.) Would you please have her STOP cooking for him?! (Color returns to Daddy’s face) He’ll never come home at this rate!! In fact, I’m thinking of moving in too!”
Daddy was like, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU FEEDING HIM?! (If memory serves me correct, I think it was pork loin and peach cobbler…)
So fast forward to the point where I marry a man with a mom who is known for a lot of wonderful things – but her culinary prowess is not one of them.
You’d think he’d be bowing at my feet over having a wife who cooks. But life can never be that simple.
You see, the man never ate at a Mexican restaurant until high school. Had no idea how to cook (or eat) with seasoning. His version of “seafood” was a frozen fish filet. Tragic, right? I cry at night thinking of his under-developed taste buds.
Meanwhile, I’m over here eating sushi, cooking crab cakes, with every herb and seasoning known to man in my arsenal…
Finding balance has sometimes been tricky. He’s not a “picky” eater, but his tastes still run a bit ummmmm, well… boring. Then again, maybe calling it “traditional” makes me sound a little less judgy…
Add to our dilemma the fact that we have freezers, yes FREEZERS, full of homegrown beef. (Look, if you could sign up for a ribeye-only beef, I’d be golden. But the reality is one beef creates a lot of cuts that aren’t my favorite.)
Each year when our beef gets delivered, we’ve got freezers full of meat… but there’s a lot more hamburger, roasts, stew beef, and cube steak than there is actual steak. That’s reality. Beef doesn’t come in a “steak only” option unless you’re at the grocery store and willing to pay more money.
But for Hubs… heck, he’s in heaven. He’s excited and begging me to cook cube steak, boring pot roast, and plain hamburger patties with onions. His mouth waters…
And I’m over her going nope, nope, NOPE. I can’t do it. I just refuse.
It’s too bland. I don’t like it. And I’m certainly not going to waste time cooking something I don’t want to eat.
But like in every good marriage, we’ve learned the art of compromise over the years. I make meatloaf, but not how his MawMaw does. Instead of roast, we do a beef burgundy. I use stew beef for Mexican. (I still refuse to make hamburger patties that aren’t part of a hamburger. I’ve got to draw the line somewhere after all… and that’s definitely a meal he can cook for himself when I’m not home.)
But anyway…
This afternoon I found cube steak thawing in the sink. Immediately I thought, d***it!! Son of a biscuit has outsmarted me into fixing supper his way. But like usual, I decided I’d try and work on it in a way we could both survive.
By the time dinner was over Munchkin had two servings, Hubs literally licked his plate, and then I caught him eating gravy out of the pot. Not kidding. Like he literally stood by the pot with a spoon. For a WHILE.
So here it is, folks: a cube steak I can live with and it only took 20 minutes.
Sorry there aren’t pictures. It was gone before I could take them…
Ingredients:
1 can Beef Consomme
1 can Cream of Potato (or mushroom)
1.5 cups water
1 packet brown gravy mix
2 tablespoons dried onion
1lb cube steak
Directions:
In your instantpot… mix soups, water, gravy mix, and dried onion with a whisk. Place thawed cube steaks in the liquid, making sure to submerge. Place the lid on, cook on manual high pressure for 20 minutes. It’s that easy.
Don’t be alarmed if it warns you the food is burning. Be patient. Don’t take the lid off, the liquid will drop back into the pot and the warning will stop.
Meanwhile, with about 10 minutes left… cook up a batch of egg noodles.
After 20 minutes, do a quick release (be careful of the steam). Top your noodles with the gravy and beef, and supper is DONE!
The whole family loved it, we used my LEAST favorite cut of meat, and I actually enjoyed eating it:)
Did I mention it was done in 20 minutes?
Eat beef, folks…
Love,
Stilletos
Farming in Stilettos 