Pan-Seared Steaks

Matt and I met while working at Crate and Barrel -- cute, right? Sometimes vendors would come out and do demonstrations of their products for us (and give us a free one while they were at in), and this is how I learned how to pan-sear a steak. Thank you, Calphalon, whose pans I still love.

What I love about pan-searing is how completely simple it is (and also that there is a very minimal amount of clean-up.)

Prepare your steaks by trimming off any excess fat and grinding salt onto both sides of the meat. Don't be shy about the salt, it makes the steak juicier and totally delicious.

Place the steaks on your hot, dry pan. Don't use butter or olive oil on the pan, you want it to be dry.

Leave the steak in one place while its cooking, until you flip it halfway through.

Once the steaks are cooked to your liking, remove them to plates and pour red wine into the pan, raising the temperature. The wine will pick up all the little bits left by the meat, and will clean the pan while making a sauce. I threw a little bit of feta into mine, both to thicken the sauce and to add a little flavor.

Pour this sauce over the steak, and you're ready to eat!

We had ours with more of Paula Deen's Baked Sweet Potato Fries and it was a lovely combination.