The Steak and Potatoes Diet

When I realized that I would have to be on a gluten-free diet for the rest of my life, one of my primary thoughts was: I can still eat steak. In fact, when people try to have pity on me for my dietary restrictions, I tell them that I love my diet: it includes steak, potatoes, and ice cream.

You probably don't need instructions on how to cook steak and potatoes. I'm mentioning it for What's for Dinner? Wednesday not because I think people need to know more about steak and potatoes, but because I sometimes like to remind myself to keep it simple. Simple is delicious.

For more gluten-free dinner ideas see Linda at the Gluten-free Homemaker.

My friend and I bought all the main ingredients for this meal at the Portland Farmer's Market. The herbs were picked form the garden - they miraculously survived the winter. First I cleaned and prepped the potatoes. We put a dry skillet in the oven at 400 degrees to heat up. I mixed some walnut oil, salt, sage, and thyme together. I rubbed the oil mixture all over the potatoes and some purple carrots and placed them in the hot pan, which then went in the oven to roast. Some of the oil mixture was left over, and I basted the potatoes with that midway through cooking. The potatoes took about 40 minutes.

In the meantime we simply rubbed the steak with some walnut oil and seared it in a cast-iron skillet on the stove. That went in the oven for a few minutes too.

Once the steak was in the oven we cooked up some greens. We had already washed and dried some tatsoi greens and some black trumpet mushrooms (one is sitting on top of the steak in the picture below). Those got sauteed in some oil and salt in a skillet on the stove. When they were done we pulled everything out of the oven, salted the steak, and dished it up for a beautiful meal.