Red Meat / Red Wine

Some times a coupon can be a mixed blessing. The local market was kind enough to send a coupon for 15% off the price of one steak. If one is going to get 15% off one might as well take advantage of the situation. Today we purchased a multi-person porterhouse steak, all 2.1 pounds of it. It was more like purchasing a small cow.

We fired up the grill this evening, seasoned the steak with a little pepper blend and tossed it on the grill for four minutes, flipped it over and grilled it for four minutes longer. We then moved it off the direct heat to the other side of the grill and closed the lid to let it bake for an additional ten minutes. Since the steak was overkill to begin with we threw caution to the wind and fried some potatoes in duck fat as a side dish. We added a few slices of yellow tomato, a small, just picked cherry tomato and some fresh basil.

After the photo below was taken we sliced the meat off the bone and cut it into medium rare slices, and had enough left for another meal.

The wine of choice was another bottle of Mazzocco Zinfandel, this time a 2005 bottling. This follows on the heels of a 2001 and a 2003 that were enjoyed over the last couple of weeks. This was the weakest of the three wines, still good, but not on a par with the other two vintages. This wine had all the elements the other two had, good brambly fruit, nice acid, medium body and moderate alcohol. It also had a slightly green taste to it, as though the grapes weren't perfectly ripe. Even though it was the youngest of the three I can't attribute this to age. It simply contained some grapes that weren't quite as ripe.

It made little difference tonight because the steak was wonderful and the potatoes bordered on decadent and the wine was very good with both of them.

Scott got some bits and pieces in his dog food, and we also added a little of the reserved duck fat to his bowl.

This is a very happy household this evening, and a very well fed one also. I sense a long, walk for Scott and I tomorrow to work some of this off.