COOKING WITH JAZ: steak

Hey guys,

Hope you're all well in the Lord :-)

Before I start, I'll have you know that our wedding video is up on Youtube. If you weren't able to attend our wedding, we thought we'd share a clip about how the day went.
Thank you to everyone who made the day extra special. We truly bless God for each one of you.
You can find the video on the link below:
Jasmine + Daniel

Back to food, thought I'd write a post about dining in on those special date nights. Husbands, this is the part you start taking notes ;-) If you're looking to spice up your love life over a romantic dinner without it costing you an arm and a leg then this is for you.

Last night was our weekly date night. Me and the hubz vowed to make an effort every single Wednesday or basically once every week to go on a special date. It could be dinner at a new restaurant or dinner at one of our favorite spots or a movie, etc but yesterday we decided it was going to be indoors since we couldn't decide where to go. I told the hubz to take me home and we'd still make it extra special by me making a nice three course meal.

We started of with a simple snack of roasted chicken potato crisps and macadamia nuts. <Just a small portion, the idea isn't to fill up before the appetizer>

Ingredients:-
Fresh bread/ Baguette <I usually buy a fresh loaf/ roll at The Bakery at the Shell Petrol station in Westlands for about 120 Ksh>
Steak slices <Preferably the tenderloin, ask your butcher to give you softest part of the cow>
Fresh salad in a pack <retails in Nakumatt and Uchumi for 80 Ksh>
1 can Sweet corn <retails at about 130 upwards depending on the brand>
Balsamic vinegar <retails at about 400 upwards>
Extra virgin olive oil
Vegetable oil
2 Tomatoes
Sandwich cheese sliced <retails for about 230 upwards depending on the brand>
Pesto <retails for about 300 upwards depending on the brand>
Plantain < large bananas commonly used in West Africa>
1 Zucchini <also known as courgette >
Dried parsley
Black pepper
3 garlic cloves
Fruits < I used watermelon and nectarines>

Note: Remember that these are ingredients you can use more than once so it would be very good investment for your kitchen.

For the Appetizer: Pesto bites

Heat oven to 180 degrees.

Cut bread and tomatoes in slices. Apply pesto on the slices and put cheese and tomatoes on the top. Sprinkle some parsley and olive oil and put in a oven for 5 minutes.

For the main course: Steak, fried plantain & zucchini with a garden salad

Start by peeling the plantain and slicing it. Wash and slice courgette.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan and once it is hot, fry plantain and courgette slices. Once they're cooked, remove them from the oil and place on a plate with kitchen tissues/serviettes to drain out the oil.

Wash salad greens and put aside.

Follow by slicing steak in large strips. Peel and chop garlic and put to cook with olive oil on a grill plate/ pan. Add steak slices and season with salt and black pepper.
Bonus tip: Steak is cooked last because meat tends to dry up when kept for long before serving, serve when juicy and hot>

For Dessert: Fruit platter
Wash and cut up the fruit.

Plating
Place pesto bites and fruit neatly on two separate long plates.
Sprinkle some olive oil on the pesto bites before serving.
On a fancy plate <cause remember its date night> place fried plantain and courgette on top. Follow by placing the salad greens with a handful of sweet corn on top and drizzle with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Lastly place the steak slices and serve. < Optional-You can sprinkle some sea salt on the top of the steak before serving>

For the married, enjoy with some well lit candles, some music, a good glass of wine or juice and finish it off with the fruit platter.
Above all, enjoy each others company, take time to discuss your passions and plans together. You may be married but you can still date your spouse until you're old and grey.

For the singles, this could be an awesome meal to impress your friends or it could serve as practice for the future :-)

As always, I'll have you know:-

-I'm up to 13800+ pageviews-thank you Jesus! and thank you all for following and trying out my recipes.

-I'm now on Youtube, you can subscribe and check out the video here: CookingwithJaz

-I am officially on twitter on this account (@cookingwithjaz)

-I am also on facebook on this page "cooking with jaz"
-You can also find me on instagram under the handle, "cookingwithjaz"

-If you want to be featured on the "GUEST AND RECIPE OF THE WEEK" email me on "cookingwithjaz@yahoo.com"

-If you have tried any of my recipes, do tag me or send me the pics on any one of my social media pages

Have a lovely week :)

Sincerely,

Jaz.

Hey yall! First of all I must say that you are all making this quite some fun! I am truly enjoying cooking, blogging and all the feedback I am getting from you guys! Excited to plan a cookout before the year is over! How many would be willing to come over and learn a few quick and easy recipes? Do let me know!

Oh well, this weeks recipe is inspired by my cravings...lol...yes we all have them, and I was craving meat this week more than anything else. Thought about dining out for a nice juicy steak, but I figured I'd stay in and make some myself! Instead of the usual rice/fries I opted for some creamy mashed potatoes and tried out some different veggies I found while shopping.

Ingredients:
-Steak from your local butchery *depends on the number of people being served- 200-250 gram steak per person approx*
-Garlic
-Onions
-Potatoes
-Asparagus
-3 spoons unsalted butter
-1/4 cup milk
-Olive oil
-Royco
-Dried Rosemary
-Black pepper
-Salt to taste

First and foremost, I marinated the steaks with black pepper, rosemary, salt, olive oil and a teaspoon of royco and put aside.

I then put water to boil, peeled and cut up my potatoes in halves and added to the boiled water to cook.

As they were cooking, I washed up my asparagus and added to the boiling water. *kill two birds with one stone so they say* Asparagus take about only 5-7 minutes to cook so I removed them way before the potatoes were cooked. After that I chopped off the ends and put them aside.

After the potatoes were ready* test to see if they are ready by poking with a knife, if the potato slides down it is cooked, if it sticks firmly to the knife it is still not ready*
I drained the water, put them in a bowl and added the butter, black pepper and salt to taste. I also added the milk as I mashed them. You can add as much butter and milk as you like if you want it to be more creamier.

I also made some gravy to accompany this meal seeing how you cant have a completely dry meal with mashed potatoes involved. Now the funny thing is that I had run out of onions and tomatoes so I wasn't able to make it how I wanted. To make a quick and easy gravy kenyan style, cut onions and cook, grate two tomatoes and add to cook. Add tomato paste, a dash of soya sauce for color and thicken with a spoon of royco. You can add oregano or parsley to give it a better-less tomatier taste!

Once I was done with the gravy, I put about 3 tablespoons olive oil in a pan and added some chopped garlic to cook. Before adding my steaks to cook, I fried the asparagus that I had previously put aside with the same pan for about 2 min and removed them. *there goes that killing of the birds again with one stone-hehe*