Compound butter

I never knew butter on steak was a thing, which is probably because beef hasn’t been in my life much until this decade, but now that I’ve eaten a few steaks I’ve started to catch on to the tips and tricks of preparing it.  Nothing has come close to Bob’s Steakhouse in Carlsbad.  Nothing.  That was the best meat I’ve ever had in my entire life without question.  A close second was the meat I had at Mulvaney’s B&L which had a balsamic butter on top.  I made a mental note at that dinner.  Butter on meat.  It’s a thing.

Kyle wanted to grill this weekend so I decided to satisfy all his dreams at once and bought three rib eye steaks at WF.

Oh did I forget to mention I went back to WF?

Patty-cakes had another follow up appointment post OIT graduation in Fremont on Friday so we had an adventure of a day fighting that traffic.  My reward for spending 5 hours in the car with both kids was a WF lunch date.

In all seriousness though, they are super well behaved and travel with them isn’t that bad thanks to books on cd and podcasts.  It’s the other crazy people on the road who make it terrible.  A bid rig tried to run me off the road rather than merge and the tire of the car in front of me on the Benicia bridge blew up.  Soooo..yeah…I’ll be glad when these drives are done.  Or we get a self driving car.  [Not really, that scares me too]

But I am so pleased with his desensitization progress and so is Dr. Jain so that’s great.  Makes it allllll worth it. 🙂

They love our WF dates because I let them pick out whatever they want from the salad bar – which is usually THE WEIRDEST combo of foods ever.  They always pick croutons because they love them.  And this time they also asked for corn, tofu, shrimp, raw cauliflower, strawberries, bell peppers and I don’t even know what else.  Super random, but they finished it all.

I got the same 9 grain lentil salad with feta, slivered almonds and kale.  And added candied walnuts to it per usual.  It’s insanely good.  I got a massive portion so that I’d have leftovers for the weekend.

Which I finished off on Saturday, along with more (home made) candied walnuts and carrots.

I had at least quadruple the amount of carrots and candied walnuts shown.  I am FINALLY starting to feel better GI wise.  It’s been a tough month, that’s for sure.   Lots and lots of kombucha have helped and I also added in a probiotic this week now that I’m feeling on the mend.  Hopefully this ship has turned around and I’m set to sail off into the sunset.

Ok, so that was a little Friday interlude.  Back to Saturday’s steaks.

Compound butter.

You can use any herbs to make it.  I picked rosemary and thyme from the garden, chopped them up, and then mashed it into some Earth Balance along with a bit of salt.  You could use butter if you don’t have dairy allergies (or maybe ghee?).

I mashed it into a little ball, but you could also wrap it in saran wrap for storage until you are ready to use it. Like most marinades and sauces, the longer it has to hang out together the longer the flavors have to meld, so I made it in the morning in anticipation of dinner.

I saved some of the rosemary and thyme to tie in the side dish.

We had red potatoes and an onion leftover from the previous week’s groceries so I decided to roast them.  I’m trying to not buy any new food this week (aside from the few things I grabbed at WF on Friday) in an attempt to clean out every last morsel in the fridge.

And for a veggie, I thawed some frozen (grilled) asparagus.  It was a little meh but the kids loved it, so I guess that’s a win.

I think it’s been a while since they last ate asparagus (or maybe not! per my site’s search we’ve had it plenty this year) and while I know P likes it, I wasn’t sure if V was still cool with it.  It’s a strong flavor!  But I needn’t worry, she never fails to impress me with the range of her palate.  They both ate up every last bite and wanted more.

Same with the potatoes.  But that’s no surprise, roasted potatoes are always a huge hit.

I bought three steaks and we didn’t have any leftovers.  So there’s that.

Kyle grilled them on high direct heat for 12-15 minutes flipping once and then we let them rest for 10 minutes before eating.  They were thick so that got them to a perfect medium/medium rare.

Personally, I prefer more well done meat, but this was great.

And once the compound butter was on top…ohhhhh…melty bliss.

This was a semi fatty cut, but obviously this is not an everyday kind of meal.  Obvious to that, the kids asked when we could have it again next because it was so good.  They really do know the way to my heart.  Complimenting me on a meal and asking for it again is a surefire way to get exactly what you want.  Yes, the steaks were $$$ but I love that they appreciate good food.  They also like beans and rice, so it all balances out.  😉

And as if that weren’t indulgent enough, I actually had dessert too.

This campfire smores bar is my new favorite chocolate (from TJs).  It’s SOOOO sweet though (helllooooo milk chocolate), so a little goes a long way.  The other bar on the plate below is also from TJs but very different.

Like many other things from Trader Joe’s, this one is a super value buy.  It’s organic dark chocolate with raisins and pecans and only costs 1.99.  The chocolate is deep and rich but not bitter and you can savor it slowly.  The raisins in it evoke raisinet flavors, but without the plastic movie theatre element.  It’s yummy.

Happy grilling season!  Enjoy the sun.  Make some compound butter.  🙂