Bad day...Good steak

What is the worst thing that could happen in the morning?

Oversleeping.

** I do not think it to be a coincidence that we ladies at the office got a devotional today called "Good Morning Lord" **

It's positively terrible.  Mostly if it's really a tremendous amount of time that you've overslept.  Well, that started out my bad day today...oversleeping.  I should arrive at work at 8:30....work is about a 16 minute drive for me...I awoke at 8:18am.  Yeah...so the panick sank in...I was rushing...deciding what normal hygiene rituals I would simply have to skip for today....(most of them fell into the skip category, which was unfortunate for those around me) I made it to work at 8:45...do the math...that's pretty good, I must say!

I literally threw on some clothes, put some of the creme to powder foundation on, which I only use when I don't have time for the real good coverage stuff, said a quick prayer of thankfulness that I left my hair up the night before...and walked out of my room....

Only to find my father, lackadaisically sitting on the couch watching fox news...

Now, I am clearly old enough to know that this oversleeping is no one's fault but my own.  In fact as I write this, I realize I should be in bed.  I have lived on my own for years, with no one to wake me up, but for some reason, the fact that I was in bed when I should have left for work 10 minutes prior, and dad was sitting on the couch like it was a normal morning, just seemed to rub me wrong.

This was our conversation Me "how come you didn't wake me up?"  Dad "Was I supposed to?"  Me "Well, I am usually gone by now."  The end.  Yeah...nothing..

Therefore, some of you know better than others that waking up late affects your entire day.
1.  I felt really nasty and ugly...girls will feel this worse than guys, I think.
2.  There was no coffee made (another thing I didn't understand with dad being on the couch for an hour and a half prior) and I HAVE TO have coffee...
3.  I didn't have time to make my lunch, so I had to eat at Subway.  I don't really like subway.
4.  My brain was scattered and I felt like I was sleeping most of the day.

You see, something so simple proceeds to much mess ...
How do you fix such a disaster, you ask...well, I have just the thing: STEAK!

Steak has always been tricky in my cooking experience.  I mean there are definitely techniques that if you don't follow through, the steak is edible, but not good...not that melt in your mouth beefy goodness...with the juices flowing and such.  So, I've been wanting to try a technique by Anne Burrell from her show "secrets of a restaurant chef", because well, they seem to know how to do it most of the time.

So, one of the secrets is to rub it down with your rub (recipe below) two-three days before you cook it...seriously makes all the difference in the world...amazing.

I used a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens, this month they had a butcher in (Kari Underly) and she had some secrets herself:

1 Tbsp Brown sugar
2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp salt

That's it...seriously...you combine this and rub the steaks...place them on a plate covered with saran wrap and refrigerate.  Then a few days later as you are preping for dinner, take them out about 1/2 an hour before you want to cook them; the steaks enjoy coming to a room temp (that's what I hear from the chef's.)  Depending on what kind of steaks you have (thickness, cut, and how you like em done being taken into consideration) your steaks will only take like 4-7 minutes per side!

Being that it's winter and it was seriously like -30 degrees today, it's obvious this won't be taking place on a gas or charcoal grill...I used my Cast Iron Griddle...which is a thing for experts....I need more practice...

I believe since Iron holds heat so well, you need to get it really hot (because that's best for cooking the steaks) and then turn it down, because it takes a long time to cool, it will stay considerably HOT throughout your cooking.  I did not think about that till after the meal tonight...which my family and I ate in a cloud of smoke that was created from my mad cooking skills...anywho...

They were so yummy...juicy, tender, tasty...the kind of tasty where I picked up the bone and made sure all the meat was "taken care of" The meat next to the bone was out of this world sweet and tender...whew...

And I like a medium/medium rare steak...so some pink is very GOOD!!!

I'm terrible at taking pictures of food, but for all of you visual folks out there, I know it helps to see.

The moral of the story...even if you oversleep on a Wednesday morning, as long as you rubbed some steaks on Monday, in the end, everything will be okay. 

I made these potatoes to go with my steak from Faithfulness Farm.  They were yummy..also a little use of my cast irons...yeah...

So, tomorrow when things don't seem to be the cheeriest (although I hope it's better than today) just think ahead to dinner, which is the most fun part of the day...