Red Cabernet Gravy and Baked Steak

Sometimes, I get tired of routine recipes and decide to concoct my own. But really, I mostly do it because I don't have enough time for routine recipes. About 60% of the time, the reason I concoct my own recipes isn't because I'm awesomely curious and a culinary genius - it's because I'm short on time, with a hungry husband/dinner guests looking at me like a zombie looks at a brain buffet. This recipe was born out of exactly this circumstance. I was actually shocked when the whole dinner turned out to be a success. After all, I didn't even START prepping until after my guests had arrived and I had shattered our first (of three) bottles of wine on the floor.

Bad start to a great dinner. Sometimes, you just have to soldier on, even when the odds are against you. The next two bottles of wine turned out to be EXCELLENT.

My original plan had been to make salisbury steak. I had a beautiful cut of grass-fed sirloin beef steak in the fridge which I had (thankfully) the foresight to thaw earlier. With some kind of boeuf bourguinon/salisbury steak mixup in mind, I had ordered my husband to pick up some carbernet and mushrooms. Aside from those ingredients, some wilting broccoli and a few scraps of bacon, my fridge was basically empty.

With guests arrived and hungry, a slow-cooked meal was not an option. Armed with lots of booze, this is what I did:

I cut about 8 pieces of bacon into 1 inch squares and fried it until golden brown, reserving the grease. In the same pan (unwashed), I sauteed 2 small, sliced onions and a dozen sliced white mushrooms in the remaining bacon grease until golden brown (remember what Julia says: don't crowd the mushrooms!), which I set aside.

Meanwhile, I threw a pint of stewed tomatoes into a saucepan along with 3 cubes of beef bouillon and a hearty pinch of salt and turned it up to boil. I tossed in the cooked bacon and the better part of the bottle of cabernet (ok, like half). When the mushrooms were finished, I rinsed the pan out with about 2 cups of water, which I tossed into the soon-to-be-gravy. With the gravy happily simmering, I poured about 1/2 the reserved bacon grease into the same pan and whisked in about 4 Tblsp. of flour to make a thick roux which could be rolled into a ball. I rolled the roux around in the pan on medium high for about 5 minutes to brown it, then whisked it into the boiling gravy, which had now been simmering for about 20 minutes.

(You'll note that this recipe doesn't have the nice, friendly list of carefully measured ingredients my posts normally have. That's because this is how I actually cook. Frantically, tossing handfuls of ingredients in between conversations with 4 pots going on the stove at the same time. Like washing off my mascara before going to bed, measuring ingredients is a luxury I don't really bother with anymore.)

As the gravy contemplated its new existence, I threw the sirloin steak (which I had cut into 3" chunks) onto the same pan (with a little bacon grease to keep it from sticking) and seared it on high about 3 minutes on each side.

With all my players in place, I layered a casserole dish with the sirloin, topped it with the reserved mushrooms and onions, coated everything with the red gravy and threw it in the oven at 400 for 20 minutes.

Incidentally, I steamed some broccoli and whipped up hollandaise sauce in my blender while it baked.

Forgetting for a moment that this meal is packed with bacon grease and booze, it couldn't have turned out better. The steak was still slightly pink in the center, and it was very moist from being baked in the gravy. The red gravy (as I've named it) was just...the best gravy I've ever had. Probably because it had half a bottle of cab in it. Julia Child calls for this much red wine in her famous boeuf bourguinon recipe, which has lead me to one of the most important culinary breakthroughs of my twentysomething foodie career: everything is better when cooked with wine. Really, just everything. Red gravy is no exception (a little bacon doesn't hurt, either).

Despite my mother's admonitions to not "mess with tradition!", I'm going to make red gravy with turkey drippings for Thanksgiving dinner this year, which will be slathered over my yukon gold basil mashed potatoes.

I may decide to up the wine and see if dinner progresses any differently than it normally does. It's just a suspicion, but I may have found the cure for holiday dinner awkwardness.