Quarantine Cooking: Saturday Steak Night

After a day of clay, it was time to go home and make dinner. I had woken up early that Saturday and decided on a whim to go to the farmers market. I had a great time. I came home with my market tote laden with tomatoes, Cubanelle peppers, artichokes (baby and huge Globes), Thai basil plants, artisanal chocolate, corn (white and bicolor), and a Black cod filet. I spent so much time cooking the vegetable side dishes that the hubs decided to grill the steak, which I had already salted and coated with garlic confit and laid on rosemary sprigs.

I couldn't find the soft mozzarella and decided on an even simpler tomato salad: just the 3 tomatoes I bought, salt and torn basil.

My friend Meral's sister is growing tomatoes, beans and herbs. Her tomatoes looked healthier than ours and her basil was crazy prolific.

I was going to cook Mexican street corn, but since we were having steak and a tomato salad, I decided to stick to an Italian flavor profile.

Elote entails mayonnaise and sour cream and Cotija and fresh squeezed lime juice, cilantro and chili powder. Easy swaps for an Italian creamed corn were to keep the mayo and sour cream and swap out the Cotija for Parmesan & Romano, the lime for lemon, and basil for cilantro.

For heat, I used Aleppo and red pepper flakes instead of chili powder.

And because I had them, I added chives to my Italian creamed corn.

Hubs was not impressed with the tomatoes, and so next time I'll dress them with olive oil and balsamic or sherry vinegar and garnish with soft mozzarella cheese. The steak, however, was perfectly medium rare which I wouldn't have accomplished because I was so obsessed with executing vegetable sides.