I love the name of this recipe. It’s about as imaginative a name as my family would come up with.

But you know what? It’s perfect. That’s exactly what it is — mushroom steak stuff.

Check this out from AllRecipes.com: 

The Mushroom Steak Stuff

SUBMITTED BY: Fetish Cook

“The Mushroom Steak Stuff is what my family has come to call it. In all actuality, it’s sirloin strips and an awesome feta-mushroom cream sauce with pasta. A wonderful Italian meal!”

RECIPE RATING:

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PREP TIME	25 Min
COOK TIME	35 Min
READY IN	1 Hr

INGREDIENTS

• 4 slices bacon
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 (16 ounce) package rigatoni pasta
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 pound beef top sirloin, thinly sliced
• 1 (6 ounce) package sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon minced fresh ginger root
• 1 pinch salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons red wine
• 1 tablespoon Marsala wine
• 1 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 2/3 cup heavy cream

 

DIRECTIONS

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
• Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly brown. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate and set aside. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil over high heat with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the rigatoni pasta, and cook until al dente, 8 to 10 minutes; drain.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes until hot and bubbly. Crumble the bacon overtop, and serve over the rigatoni pasta.
• Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sirloin strips, and cook until no longer pink, about 6 minutes. Remove the sirloin to a casserole dish, then stir the mushrooms into the hot skillet. Cook and stir for 2 minutes, then season with the mustard, ginger, salt, and pepper, and cook 3 minutes more. Pour in the red wine and Marsala wine, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Add the cream and half of the crumbled feta cheese, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. The feta helps thicken the cream. The cream sauce is not a gravy, so it will not thicken like gravy. Once ready, pour the mushroom mixture over the sirloin strips, and sprinkle with the remaining feta cheese.

You can read the entire article along with readers’ comments here. And try it yourself!

Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge Coca-Cola fan. I’m trying to do something about that but that’s another story for another day.

It’s fizzy. It’s sugary. It’s absolutely divine.

So . . . even I never thought of using good ‘ol Coke as a steak marinade. Who wouldda thunk?

Check this out from our friends at Chow.com:

HOME COOKING: Wacky but Wonderful Marinade for Steaks

From the sounds-awful-but-is-really-good files: Marinate tougher cuts of steak in equal parts Italian salad dressing, ketchup, and Coca-Cola.

From the sounds-awful-but-is-really-good files: [one reader] loves to marinate tougher cuts of steak in equal parts Italian salad dressing, ketchup, and Coca-Cola. He lets the steak soak in this mixture all day before grilling. [Another reader] tried it out, and says it’s both delicious and helps tenderize the meat (the latter’s due to the phosphoric acid in the Coke). She likes a little less Coke relative to the dressing and ketchup, and the addition of some Tabasco.

You can take a look at the entire article here. And have a Coke for me!

This one I never would have thought of myself in a million years . . . pickle juice as a steak marinade.

It’s so simple it’s genius!

Here’s the lowdown from a really good blog post in Cleveland:

Brush on some pickle juice for a sweet splash of flavor

It makes me cringe [to] think of marinating a steak. Why put my hard-earned money into a piece of meat you’re going to slather with a marinade, a rub, or — heaven forbid — ketchup or A1? But I will admit that adding a little flavor to the beef is suitable.

Maybe it sounds odd, but a light brushing of sweet pickle juice during the last part of grilling a steak is a favorite in our house. The family picks are Sechler’s Sweet Orange Strip pickle juice or Vlasic’s Sweet Gherkin pickle juice. It’s a quick way to add flavor without losing the natural taste of the meat.

Before grilling, we put a little olive oil on the steaks, to keep them from sticking to the grill. Then we center them on a hot charcoal grill for two or three minutes on each side, to sear in the juices. Then, after moving the steaks to the side of the grill for slower cooking, we brush pickle juice onto the steaks.

When cooked, they still taste like beef, with a slightly sweet taste. Yum!

— Brenda Junkin

You can read this and other “sweet” ideas here:

http://blog.cleveland.com/lifestyles/2008/06/mushroom_council_steak_is_deli.html