Cooking-Outdoors » 2008

Grecian Rib Eye Steak with Baked Onion and Potato.

Have you ever stopped at the meat case and just have a piece call to you? Yes, then you know what happened to me. Rib Eye Steak grilled over an open fire just screamed at me. Some where in the back of my cluttered mind I remembered a rub that sounded perfect. My Fire Pit had been idle for a few weeks so everything just clicked.

I took my 1lb Rib Eye Steak home to let rest while I got the Fire Pit going. Still trying to remember the ingredients of the rub, I scoured the spices on hand, checked the fridge and once again threw it together. Best way, right? Thought I would throw a Potato and Onion on the coals also.

Here is my dinner for the night including my “Grecian Rib Eye Steak”!

Grecian Rib Eye Steak

1 Rib Eye Steak rested at room temp.

1 – 2 tbl Feta cheese

Olive oil

Rub for 2 steaks

1 tbl Garlic powder

1 tbl Oregano

1 tbl Basil

1 tsp Pepper

1 tsp Coarse salt

Baked Potato and Onion

1 Large Potato washed and dried

1 Large Sweet Onion peeled

1 tsp Garlic salt

1 tsp Course pepper

1 tsp dried Parsley

Olive oil to coat

1 Pat of Butter each

2 sheets of foil for each Potato and Onion to wrap completely

How ever you decide to cook yours, my first and only choice for this Steak was an open fire. It just cried out for a mesquite fire. Well, old plum tree and ceder fence board to start with, then I added the misquite I burned the fire for a couple of hours to get a good coal base started. Great excuse to stay outside! Then I added some Mesquite charcoal to the fire to enhance the flavor of the steak.

I took the Potato and cut it in half and cut a X on the top of the Onion. Rub both with Olive Oil, then sprinkle the Garlic salt, Pepper, Parsley and a pat of butter. Wrap each with 2 sheets of foil. The challenge was to get the Potato and the Onion cooked and done before the Steak was finished. I opted to throw both of them directly onto the coals. Not into the fire, on the coals!

As your fire is burning down, move some of the coals to the side and set your Potato and Onion directly on the coals. You have to keep turning them! About every 10 minutes or so. You will have some hot spots and the skins will burn here and there. Great for flavor! Cook time is about 1 hour. The onion could be little less. This is where practice takes over, you have to experiment to find out what works best for you. Some days it will be a little under done and other days, maybe a little crunchy. It’s all good when it’s cooked Outdoors!

Grecian Rib Eye Steak, probably one of my best recipes!!!

Wash and dry your steak, rub it with some Olive Oil and pat your rub all over. Let it sit for a least an hour. Grease up your grill ( I like to use Crisco for this) and then swing it over a hot bed of coals to pre-heat. Slap that steak on the grill and hold on! The smell is incredible! Sear on both side for about 2 minutes then cook to your personal preference.

Remember to let that steak sit for a few minutes before you cut into it. Un-wrap the Potato and Onion, plate them with the Grecian Rib Eye Steak, sprinkle a couple of spoonfuls of Feta cheese on them an enjoy!

Give this a try ….. I would have paid top dollar at a restaurant for this steak! I was fantastic!

“Get out of the kitchen! Light the fire! Start cooking outdoors”

Newsletter contest ending on 12/01!!

Just a quick reminder that this months Newsletter contest is about to end! It’s a full years subscription to 6 issue of “Taste of Home” magazine. It’s not to late…… sign up now!

Cub Scout Camp and New York Steaks.

Just had the opportunity to go with the Cub Scout to the Lion’s Club camp “Camp Pacifica”. “Camp Pacifica is owned and operated by the various Lions clubs in the Central California Valley. Located just south of Mariposa, Ca, surrounded by beautiful mountain country. The facilities have cabins, kitchens, pool, basket ball court, soccer filed, baseball field and a pond just to name a few.

The Oakdale Cub scouts were very fortunate to be invited to spend the Veterans day weekend at the camp. Several adults and a few dozen Cub scouts took up the offer. We all piled into the various cabins, the boys in one, women in another, the guys had their own also. I cheated and shacked up with my wife and kids, the boys have never been on their own before so we keept them with us.

Our activities included hiking, basketball and letting the boys explore the camp area. I am sue the favorite activity was letting the boys explore. They had a blast! Lots of area to run in, plenty of branch to use as rifles, cannons and bazooka’s. It was pretty amazing how fast they started that game. Where does that come from?

Now the food part! For dinner we had marinated New York steaks, pasta, salad and garlic bread! Boy, those Cub scouts sure know how to camp. I of course volunteered to cook the steaks. I can’t help myself, I always migrate to the grill! Our barbecue was a very large half drum with a crank down grill. It had seen some usage for sure. Over twenty steaks to cook and only one bag of charcoal to use, I was a bit nervous. The grill wouldn’t lower down any more than 12+ inches to the coals. That’s a lot of room for heat loss.

I fired up the coals and waited to see how thing would turn out. The coals were just too far away from the grill, I could easily hold may hand over the grill when it was lowered to it’s bottom reach. I slapped a steak on and it just laughed at me. Time to improvise! I managed to find several pieces of unknown (Pine I think) firewood to throw on the coals. Several minutes latter I had a live flame and I was searing the steaks for a fine meal.

Now I know you all have experienced that “Cooking-Outdoors” sensation when the food is cooking and the smells are smelling, right? It’s just perfect, smoke, sizzle, fresh air and a huge hunger. I could do no wrong to those steaks ….

We ate like champs, all the salad, pasta, New York steaks and garlic bread you could eat. Heck, we even had hot dogs for the few that didn’t want steak. It was a great weekend with the Cub Scouts at the Pacifica Lions camp. I eaven managed to take time to snap a couple of photo’s!