Steak with Roquefort Sauce

4 Tbsp olive oil
half an onion, chopped

• salt and coarsely ground black pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons brandy
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 ounces Roquefort cheese, crumbled
• Italian flat leaf parsley, for garnish

2 1 lb or so steaks

Preparation time, 20 minutes
Cooking time, 20 minutes or so maybe a bit less

I love cheese. Most cheeses, anyways. Maybe not cottage cheese. And, as determined earlier I also love beef. So, when Ruth and I went to Feenie's for dinner a couple weeks back, I ordered the marinated sirloin with Roquefort Cheese and a bordelaise sauce. As the kids say these days, OMG it was teh yum! But that's a whole other post (which I'll make soon) about our experience at Feenies. Anyways, so I went to my favorite specialty cheese shop at Park Royal and looked around a bit, and settled on a nice Montagnolo Roquefort.

I wrestled a bit with how to use the cheese, and ended up doing nothing for a while. In comes Ruth to the rescue! My girlfriend is the awesomest. Anyways, I had purchased a couple of Buffalo striploins from 3P meats in North Vancouver. I don't know if I'll purchase there again tho; it was expensive, not the friendliest, and frankly just wasn't the best meat. I've had buffalo before, and I generally quite like it. If you didn't know, buffalo is like beef only better with less fat and less preservatives. If you can imagine the best organic beef you've had and then take some of the fat away, that's buffalo. Anyways, the pieces we got weren't perfect, and at 20 bux a kilo I expect it to be awesome, near perfect with no chewy bits or fatty pieces. Especially as in Alberta buffalo is basically as cheap as or cheaper than beef. I'm sure I'll give that place another chance at some point, but I gotta say my first experience there hasn't made me a fan. The Blue Goose beef place or Sebastian's...now that's a different story. For a different blog post.

Anyways, I digress. So I had these two strips and the roquefort and a talented girlfriend. So she made a roquefort sauce. I totally loved it! She started with some olive oil in a large saucepan. She chopped up about a half an onion and sweated that for a bit. The key to sweating onions properly is to not over heat the oil, although that can be difficult on a cheap electric stove like is in my apartment. Anyways, she cooks the onions for a bit and sears the steaks on both sides (five minutes a side or so). After removing the steaks and putting them somewhere to keep them warm, she then adds some brandy, a few tablespoons I think, to loosen any browned bits on the bottom of the pan, as well as to add flavour. Once that reduces a bit she adds 1 cup of heavy cream (whipping cream, it turns out, is heavy cream. Who knew?), and brings it to a boil. During this, it should be stirred until it starts to thicken. A bit of fresh pepper and a bit of parsley, add the cheese, and fold that in until it melts, and voila! a nice sauce to go on the steaks you have warmed over on the side.

We had the steaks with some mashed potatoes and a bit of vegetable, and I found the sauce was perfect. Just a bit of the blue cheese tang, and a subtle brandy flavour, and it all really brought out the flavour of the steaks. All in all it took about 40 minutes to cook, and I personally think this one's a keeper. I know I will try it again sometime. This is one of my new faves for sure!

Welcome; my entry into the kitchen.

Welcome to my new food blog. As my profile states, I have only just started cooking. Here I am, a guy about to turn 40 and for the first time in my life I actually cook meals. And it turns out I'm not too bad at it! Whoda thunk it?

Since I quit smoking about 4 and a half months ago, I've developed a new love of food and my palate actually works too! My girlfriend is a true "foodie" who not only loves to taste food and really savours it, she can cook like a demon too. She also likes to see me make the effort to cook for her. In February of this year, I cooked for someone for probably the first time in my adult life, for her birthday. I mean, I had cooked for people before, but that consisted of something mostly prepared, and just cooking it.

It's wierd that I've never been a fan of the kitchen...I grew up in the country and my mother is a monster good cook; one of those farm ladies who grows most of her own food and then cooks it wonderfully. Out of four of us kids, my older sister and my youngest brother picked up that cooking joy. Me and my other little brother, not so much. So, when my girlfriend put a little bit of pressure on me to think outside my box, it was with trepidation that I actually did it.

My first one was real basic.With a little help from one of her foody friends, I created a red wine marinade for steaks. I basically took a cup of red wine (I used a Santa Rita Cabernet from Chile, which we also drank with the meal), a little bit of barbeque sauce (about a quarter cup), chopped up a clove of garlic and added various spices (a bit of pepper, a bit of salt, a bit of thyme). I put all of that into a ziplock bag and dropped the steak in as well, putting the whole thing in the fridge overnight. Obviously I made two of those packages.

I prepared some asparagus by breaking off the tips, and put them in the fridge as well, over night. Thirty nine years old, and can you believe I didn't know that you prepare asparagus by grabbing each end and curving til the tip breaks off? I had no idea that it would actually break where it was supposed to break! It's almost embarassing.

Anyways I had borrowed an indoor grill and set that up. I put the steaks on for about 10 minutes a side, sprinkling each one with a little bit of lemon juice. When I flipped the steaks after the first ten minutes I put the asparagus on and in the microwave created a little lemon butter. I made this by taking some butter (duhhh) and sprinkling a bit of lemon juice into it. I don't know how much, I just squeezed half a lemon til it was out of juice into the butter. Threw the bowl into the microwave for about a minutes, stir it up, and boom...tadaaa!!! a beautiful lemon butter drizzle for the asparagus.

I put the steaks and the asparagus on the plate and drizzled the lemon butter over the asparagus (quite liberally I might add) and served the dinner with some garlic bread. I'm trying to remember if I had potatoes, and I don't think I did. Anyways...success! She said she enjoyed it and even blogged about it! It was surprisingly easy and fast and had a minimum of cleanup. It didn't require any special tools other than the grill, and it was a tasty meal. I must say that personally, I don't know that I'd do a red wine marinade again as for me I tasted a bit more wine than beef, but for some that's a good thing. It wasn't the best beef we'd ever had.

Anyways, there you go...cooking story number 1, the very first. Feel free to comment!