This week the local grocery store had a good deal on beef tenderloin steaks that was too good to pass up.    We don’t each much of what I refer to as “hardcore beef” at our house.  By hardcore I mean large helpings of the well known cuts, filets, porterhouse, strips, etc.  We usually cut beef up into smaller pieces and mix with pasta, stir-fry, salads, or something like that. Frankly because these days the service cuts of beef, and pork (the other white meat) are much more affordable.  Even with the tenderloin steaks we had last night, the four of us split two 5-6oz cuts. 

As always, we were running short on time for dinner, so the plan for the tenderloin steaks was a very basic.  The beauty of a tenderloin steak is it doesn’t take much enhancing to get a great flavor.  It’s probably the most naturally flavorful cut of beef.  So I simply sprinkled a little garlic powder, salt, and pepper on each side, and seared it real good, about 3 minutes on each side, in a red hot pan.   The two steaks, in the skillet, were finished off in the oven for about 8 minutes at 375.  The plan was to do a nice reduction of burgundy or Marsala deglaze, but, oops, I forgot! 

For a side we had about 2.5lbs of red potatoes in the pantry, and some green cabbage that if it wasn’t used last night, wasn’t going to get used.  The potatoes were boiled for about 15 minutes, during that time I also diced about 4 cups of cabbage and 3/4 cup of onion, and sauteed them in butter until nice and tender.  When the potatoes were nice and soft, they were drained off, and mashed with 1/2 cup of milk and some salt and pepper.   My riff on Irish potatoes was finished by stirring the buttery cabbage into the mashed potatoes.

We needed a vegetable.  I was going to steam a bag of frozen broccoli, but the boy, already getting wind of the cabbage in the potatoes, was readying his fit for having more green stuff than he could handle.  Since the day had been long enough already,  I succumbed to opening a can of corn, enhancing it with butter, salt, and pepper.

We’re paranoid freaks about the kids choking on their food, and so cuts of meat are usually cut up for the kids into micro-diced pieces.  Tonight though this turned out to be an unnecessary concern as the steaks were so tender the knife easily tore the beef tore apart.  The tenderloin steaks tasted fantastic.  The boy ended up inhaling all his steak, looking for more, but the wife was joining us late and we had to save some for her.  The girl, she ate some of the steak without turning her nose up at it, and then proclaimed, “I’m tired”, after a few bites of corn.  That usually means, I want attention from not eating my meal.   In our house the kids have to try everything, so she was not allowed to leave the table until she tried a spoon of potatoes with cabbage in it.  She was not happy about this, but soon remembered Daddy doesn’t lose.  Already with a pre-disgusted expression, she tasted the cabbage only to verify the expression on her face.  And with that bite of forced nutrition, no matter how insignificant, she was free to go.

As for the potatoes, they were very good.  Judisious amounts of butter, like pork fat, seem to make everything taste good.  (Hmmm…. bacon would have been a good addition to the cabbage potatoes!)  The boy said he really like them, despite protesting, “Dad!  Why did you have to put cabbage in it?”  He did his level best to eat around the cabbage, but his ”green stuff” radar failed to track every piece.  The expression of surprised distain as he chewed the potatoes occassionally crunching down on some cabbage was hilarious.  In the end, the boy managed to somehow eat around most of the cabbage leaving his plate littered in cabbage pieces.

When the wife finally made it to dinner, she proclaimed the steak was just perfect.  She said the potatoes were very good, but I got the impression her Italian blood wasn’t overwhelmed by the subtle (some say bland) flavors  of Ireland.