Our son came down from Washington to visit this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday, and when he called a week ago, he asked that we consider doing a “steaksgiving” this year. Of course I said yes, so here is what we made, given the various diet restrictions of all the attendees. Additionally, like we usually do, we invited friends to join us who do not have family nearby. So I was originally planning for a gluten-free, no lactose, meal suitable for gout and diabetes. Luckily, we thought, no vegans this time around, especially given this meal was to be built around steak!
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Our Steaksgivingr Planning
Let me state right up front, I am not a beef kind of person. So I know only a little about steaks. In truth, my only ongoing relationship with beef is the occasional use of ground beef, and cooking a pot roast about once a year. Steaks, however, are not something I am very familiar with cooking. So, for instance, I though a skirt steak and flank steak were different names for the same meat; I was very wrong.
Menu
After talking with my spouse, and reviewing the varous diet restrictions and what we had on hand, we came up with a plan. We would have the following menu with options:
- Skirt Steak with shallots + mushroom gravy
- Stuffing (gluten-free with chestnuts and sourdough with hot Italian sausage)
- Green salad + dressing (oil + vinegar for lactose intolerant and creamy poppy seed for all else)
- Smashed potatoes (and 1 yam for gout)
- Cheese cake with fruit topping (and a fruit bowl for lactose intolerant, one slice without crust for gluten-free)
Diet Restrictions Considerations
Gluten-Free: All I had to do was to make a small gluten-free bowl of stuffing and make sure the salad dressing did not have any flour. For the cheese cake, we would just remove the crust and serve the filling topped with fruit so it functionally looked like any other dessert serving.
Lactose Intolerant: First I had to make a gravy without milk by using beef broth instead. The salad dressing could not be a cows-milk based dressing, although I could either use a plant-milk or just plain oil + vinegar mixture. The dessert could not be the cheese cake, so a bowl of the fruit would work instead.
- What I should have done, but did not realize in advance, was to have a roll of Lactaid on hand for lactose intolerant guests. This pill is an enzyme supplement that helps with the digestion of dairy products.
Gout: Red meat can be eaten in moderation, as can sweet things like berries, and meat-based gravies. But, potatoes raise gout so in place of that veggie, I could use yams or sweet potatoes. (There is some recent research that suggests gout is not greatly affected by diet, but I’d rather take precautions at this point until I read more.)
Diabetes: Mainly I would need to track carbs, so I could inform the person what the various dishes contained per serving. But also, using a yam instead of potatoes could help keep their blood sugar from spiking too high.
Schedule
It all focused on the week of 22 November. Our son was scheduled to arrive very early Tuesday morning, and he was scheduled to leave early Saturday; so this would be a quick 4-day trip. During which he wanted to visit with other family and friends as well. Quite a lot to do in a short period of time. The only part of the schedule that we thought was fixed was our family dinner on Thursday.
Monday: My spouse and I planned for shopping on Monday so everything would be at hand for cooking. We used InstaCart to buy the meat and cheesecake from Costco and had it delivered the same day. But Costco did not have skirt steak and instead my shopper brought USDA Choice Beef Flank Steak. While this is a reasonable alternative, the taste and cooking turns out to be very different.
Tuesday: We woke up Tuesday and there he was making coffee for himself. He had come in at 0130, very early in the morning. We hugged and caught up a bit, but then he changed up the timing completely. He said he would stay with us Tuesday and Wednesday, and then spend Thursday elsewhere, returning home on Friday to catch a ride to the airport the next day.
As a result we agreed to do our Thanksgiving the next day! With the change in date, one of the guests could not come, as this was the busiest time for their work. However, another guest showed up unplanned. So we planned for a dinner of four, and even with people changes we would have four.
With the change in plans, my spouse and I prepped all the veggies and herbs immediately and filled our fridge to the brim. For four hours we:
- Cleaned and chopped mushrooms, carrots, celery, scallions, and chestnuts
- Cleaned and oiled + seasoned potatoes
- Cooked sausage
- Defrosted home made broth
- Harvested, cleaned and chopped herbs including oregano, thyme, sage, garlic chives, and parsley
- Then our son chopped up the salad fixings: carrots, celery, radish, and toasted walnuts
- Washed dishes
Wednesday: This was the day of cooking and would take all three of us to make happen. Dinner time was set for 4pm, so we all started at 1:45. Our son cooked the mashed potatoes, steak, and made the gravy. My spouse did most of the dish washing, table setting and managed to keep up the the mess we made. I cooked the two stuffings, made the raspberry mix for the cheese cake, and consulted.
Our last-minute guest arrived, and wouldn’t you know it, was a gluten-free vegetarian. So she was given the GF stuffing and smashed potatoes, and of course the dessert.
Problem Ingredients
Steak
Ordering this cut of meat from my local butcher in advance (at the El Cerrito Natural Grocery Store) would have been very expensive, so I thought I would get them from Costco. Given my recent knee surgery, I could not actually deal with a trip to Costco yet, as it is both too big and has such a hard floor; so I ordered from Instacart for them to do the shopping and deliver to my porch. The question was how much should I order. I thought that ~3# of meat would be enough, but the shopper found the only pack near 3# was 4#! OMG that packaged contained a lot of meat.
What this meant was: 4# x 16oz = 64oz and 64oz / 6oz servings = 10.67 servings. That was enough for two full meals, plus left over for the freezer. Because we are not usually beef eaters, this was a lot of meat for our house. Although the dogs loved it, visiting the kitchen to check the floors for accidental treats.
I looked up flank steak, since I know nothing about the cut, and found it is considered a beefy tasting meat that needed to be cooked on high heat, and fast, as it is also a bit tougher to chew than skirt steak. So I decided to make it medium-rare, more on the rare side, and would slice the meat before serving, into thin strips that were cut against the grain.
Cheesecake
I also ordered cheesecake from Costco and was brought a plain, 12” cheesecake. It had pre-slice marks on the cake, and would make enough servings to feed a slice to our whole little neighborhood. There is only two of use at home, so I had only a couple of days to get our son filled with steak and cheesecake. We did not really want leftovers of either.
Cooking the Steaksgiving Meal
I am sharing the ingredient list followed by some high level instructions. The idea here is to give enough information you can make your own special dinner.
Plain Cheesecake with Fruit Topping
- Costco 12” plain cheese cake
- 2 pints raspberries
- Triple Sec
- Organic cane sugar
- Serve the cheesecake slice and top with berries and some of the sauce
Cleaned and washed 2 pints of raspberries and placed into a bowl. Added a pinch of organic cane sugar and Triple Sec for a touch of orange flavor, then placed in the fridge to marinate. The cake was large, so later in the week I also did the same with some organic frozen strawberries as I prefer a berry topping on the cheesecake.
Green Side Salad
- Romaine salad roughly shopped
- 2 carrots sliced
- 1 bunch red radish sliced or matchstick, use as many as you want
- 2 Celery ribs, sliced
- One creamy salad dressing and one oil-n-vinegar salad dressing
Chop Romaine lettuce into bite sized chunks, add sliced carrots, celery, and radish. (Really, you can add as much or little of the non-lettuce veggies as you like.) Mix in a large bowl and set aside. Once ready to eat, mix salad well and place into individual serving bowls with the dressing options on table with one creamy and one oil + vinegar dressing.
Smashed Potatoes/Yams
- Youkon Gold small potatoes (2-3 per person)
- One medium yam
- Oil
- Salt and pepper
- Butter
- Sprinkle some finishing salt on the potatoes before serving.
Clean the potatoes and yam, place in a bowl with some oil, salt, and pepper. Mix well and then place the small potatoes and yam on a parchment lined baking sheet, and into a preheated 410F oven for 30-45 minutes. Check to see if a fork goes through the veggies to assess doneness. Then remove from heat, turn oven down to 350F, and using that same fork (or a masher), smash each potato or yam, while it is on the baking sheet. Meanwhile, preheat butter in a cast iron skillet and add a little bit of oil, them move each potato from the baking sheet onto the skillet to crisp. After around ~4min flip the potatoes and sprinkle with kosher salt. Once done, move back to the baking sheet and place in the warmed oven.
Gluten Stuffing
- 1.25C heated homemade chicken broth
- 6T melted butter
- One container Boudin Sourdough Stuffing
- 2 medium sized diced shallots
- 2 ribs celery diced
- 2 medium carrots thinly matchstick
- Chop into fourths, 10 Matiz Espana Spanish (cooked + peeled) Chestnuts
- Larger diced mushrooms
- Sauté 3 Hot Italian Sausage
- 3-4T finely chopped herbs and season with salt and peppeR
Defrost and place homemade chicken broth into the microwave to warm up. Open Boudin Sourdough San Francisco Sourdough Stuffing container and dump into a bowl. Add chopped shallots, celery, thinly sliced or matchstick carrots, and sautéed larger diced mushrooms with Hot Italian Sausage. If you buy sausage links, remove the skin from the sausage, break up the sausage into bits in the skillet, and cook the interior meat well. Add the cooked mushrooms and sausage to the bowl. Mix broth with butter and pour hot over the dry dressing, veggies and meat. Add seasoning and herbs. Mix well and let sit to soak up the liquid. Add more liquid if too dry. Taste and add seasoning or herbs if needed. Once it tastes good, move the stuffing into a parchment lined baking pan, tent with foil, and place in preheated 350F oven for 20-30min, or until hot.
Gluten Free Stuffing
- 2C heated homemade chicken broth
- 5T melted butter
- One container Aleias Gluten-Free Plain Stuffing
- 2 medium sized diced shallots
- 2 ribs celery diced
- 2 medium carrots chopped into matchsticks
- Chop into fourths, 10 Matiz Espana Spanish (cooked + peeled) Chestnuts
- Larger diced mushrooms
- 3-4T finely chopped herbs and season with salt and pepper
Defrost and place homemade chicken broth into the microwave to warm up. Open stuffing container and dump into a bowl. Add chopped shallots, celery, thinly sliced or matchstick carrots, chopped chestnuts and sautéed larger diced mushrooms. Mix broth with butter and pour hot over the dry dressing and veggies. Add seasoning and herbs. Mix well and let sit to soak up the liquid. Add more liquid if too dry. Taste and add seasoning or herbs if needed. Once it tastes good, move the stuffing into a parchment lined baking pan, tent with foil, and place in preheated 350F oven for 20-30min, or until hot.
Steak
- Steak (~6oz per serving) cooked about 3min per side till crispy crust is formed
- Sauté in avocado oil and butter
- Seasoned with salt and pepper
Cut the steak into serving portions, salt and pepper both sides. Let the meat reach room temperature, and let the skillet and oil get hot. Then once hot, add the meat, and cook ~3 minutes per side until a nice crispy crust is formed, then flip and cook the other side. Once done, remove from the skillet and set aside, tented for 5 minutes.
If you cook this steam medium or well done you will have to seriously chew the meat, medium-rare is best.
Mushroom and Shallot Gravy
- 8 sliced shallots
- 8 sliced Shiitake mushrooms
- 16 sliced Cremini mushrooms
- 3-4C beef broth
- Salt and pepper
- Gluten-free corn starch
- A touch of red wine
- 1 pat of butter
Meanwhile sauté 8 sliced shallots and 8 shiitake mushrooms in the skillet. After the mushrooms and shallots have started to cook take the steak fond off the cast iron skillet by adding 1C beef broth and scrubbing the bottom of the hot skillet. Add the onions and mushrooms and keep them moving so they do not burn. Add the cornstarch slury and whisk ass the gravy reduces. Once it tastes good and has some thickness to it, add a pat of butter and whisk well. Be sure to serve hot. This will be a very dark gravy and a heavy taste that I found good with the steak.
Left Overs Planning
Steak Sandwich + Green Salad Lunch
Left overs were used to make a steak sandwich and salad lunch. I started with toasting BrotBox Stone Oven Bürli Bread and BrotBox Gluten-free Bread. Like a Cuban Sandwich or Banh Mi, the type of bread used is critical to achieve the right texture and flavor for these sandwiches; the steak sandwich is great on the Stone Oven Bürli Bread. Like a Cuban Sandwich or Banh Mi, the type of bread used is critical to the sandwich; It is crunchy on the outside and airy soft inside.
Seasoned Flank Steak cooked 3min on each side, in a preheated oiled cast iron skillet for medium rare and then rest for ~5min before cutting into thin slices for the sandwich. To cut thiny, cut against the grain in a sawing fashion using a sharp knife.
After cooking the steak I add some oil to the frying pan and added 2 thinly sliced shallots + 4 sliced shiitake mushrooms sautéed in olive oil and vegan butter. Served the steak on the bread using horseradish as the condiment and a small green salad of Romain lettuce, matchstick carrots and radish, celery, toasted and chopped walnuts.
Smashed Potato + Eggs Breakfast
I plated up the looser parts of the smashed potatoes dish, topped with cheddar cheese. Then heated it up in the microwave. While heating the potatoes, I fried, over-easy, two eggs to top the plate and sprinkled some fresh thyme on top. This was a good and filling breakfast. I could have added steak but decided enough with the steak at that point.
Steak Hash
I cubed potatoes, yams, and a sweet potato and sautéed them in butter in a skillet. In another skillet I cooked a chunk of flank steak to a crisp outside with medium-rare inside. Once set for ~5 min I cut the steak into cubes as well. Placed the steam in with the veggies and let the flavors mingle. Meanwhile I cooked two easy-over eggs per serving. So each plate had a serving of root veggies and steak, topped with two runny yolk eggs, some freshly chopped herbs, and a dash of hot sause.
Happy Holiday
A 12-inch cheesecake is large, and we thus gave our son a slice for everyone he was going to visit over the next few days. Still there was so much left I had to have a slice each day! Woe is me.
I do not celebrate Columbus Day, but choose to celebrate that day as Indigenous Peoples Day, and likewise do not celebrate the white-washed and mythologized pilgrims-based Thanksgiving Holiday. Instead I choose this day as a celebration and thanks for my community of family and friends who support and love me throughout the year. It is my time to acknowledge my gratitude for all things that are in my life. Clearly top of that list are my spouse and son, the environment and animals that surround me and share their lives with me, my friends who are family, and that I can afford to live in the wonderful Bay Area.
Also, just to show that our family is not perfect…we had the wrong meat, and too much of it. Too much cheesecake. Acquired a vegetarian for dinner at the last minute and had our schedule blown out of the water 24 hours. No matter what, it is always a scramble to get to the actual dinner each year.
—Patty
