Steak, Balsmic Mushrooms, Spinach Rice, and Green Beans

Last night, my plan was to make Brazilian-style beef stroganoff.  Brazilian beef stroganoff is a little different from American: in addition to cream, the sauce has tomatoes, and the beef is filet mignon or some other "high end" cut.  (Filet mignon is to Brazilians what cube steak is to Americans.)  At the last minute, I could not bring myself to dice a perfectly good steak into pieces and then drench it in sauce.  Maybe if I lived in Brazil and had cheap steak-a-plenty, then I could use precious cuts of beef in such a manner without reservation. 

Instead, I made broiled steaks.  I sprinkled both sides with salt and pepper, placed them in a cast iron skillet, and broiled the steaks in the oven.  This is a really easy way to cook great steaks. 

I broiled Art's for about 6 minutes for medium-rare and Jacob and mine for about 9 minutes for medium-well (they were about 1 inch thick).  As soon as I took each steak out of the oven, I put a very small pat of butter on top.  The butter melts into a delicious sauce for the steak. 

The mushrooms I would have used in the stroganoff were transformed into balsmic mushrooms.  These came together so easily and were perfect with the steaks. 

We also had leftover spinach rice that I made a few nights ago.  I made this loosely based on a recipe in The Essential Vegatarian Cookbook published by Whitecap Books. 

Ingedients
1 cup long grain brown rice
2 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper
2 Tab olive oil
1 large onion, diced
10oz frozen, chopped spinach, thawed

Combine rice, chicken broth, salt and pepper in a rice cooker or saucepan.  Cook according to package directions.
Heat oil in a small pan.  Add onion and stir over medium heat for 5 minutes.  Stir in spinach, reduce heat and cook, covered, until hot for 5-10 minutes.  Add spinach mixture to rice. 

Before cooking the steaks, I roasted green beans in the oven with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

We all enjoyed this meal, but Jacob especially seemed to enjoy it.  He ate a ton of steak and spinach rice.  I think his full belly helped him sleep well last night- he slept until 7:00am!  (This is amazing since he normally wakes up by 5:30.)  Maybe we should have steak every night...