I’m Amanda, a newlywed and brand new homeowner from Austin, Texas. I love to renovate old furniture, update my home, and blog about it all along the way. I (and sometimes my husband, Corey) blog over at Love & Renovations about our homeownership adventures, and all of the little tweaks we’re making to our home.
For the past five years that my husband, Corey, and I have been together, we’ve had a little birthday tradition for one another. On our birthday, we get to choose a meal that we’re craving – anything we can possibly think of – and the other person will make it for us.
It’s not necessarily a huge deal (or really, even very unique) but we absolutely love it and it’s nice to be spoiled by the person you love every once in a while. So, when Corey’s birthday rolled around a few weeks ago I was excited to see what he would choose.
And ohmygoodness, he picked well.
Ribeye steak with a red-wine sauce and grilled portobello mushrooms, parmesan mashed potatoes, scallops, and asparagus. Along with the ever-important glass of red wine (Quickfire Cabernet is our current favorite).
Nom nom.
Katie always shares such amazing-looking recipes here on her blog (I know I for one am obsessed with her Sunset Margaritas) so I thought I’d try my hand at sharing a recipe of my own. This meal is a bit complicated to put together (simply because the timing is a big difficult) but it is oh-so-worth it.
This recipe serves two, but you could easily multiply it to make more!
Ingredients:
For the steak/steak sauce:
- 1 large rib-eye
- Salt & Pepper
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- Finely chopped onion (we used about a quarter of an onion – you could do more or less depending on your preferences)
- 1/4-1/2 cup of red wine (we used Cabernet – but anything would taste amazing)
For the mushrooms:
- 1-2 portobello mushrooms
- Salt & pepper
- 1/2 of an onion, sliced
- Olive oil
For the potatoes:
- 2 potatoes (I use russet)
- 1/2 stick butter
- About 2-3 tablespoons of milk
- 1/4-1/4 cup of shredded parmesan
- Garlic salt
For the scallops:
- Canola oil
- 2 tablespoons butter
- Salt & pepper
- Scallops (however many you want!)
For the asparagus:
- 1/2 bunch asparagus
- Olive oil
- Salt
Instructions (original recipe found here – we adapted it quite a bit):
Heat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
Peel and roughly chop your potatoes. Fill a large pot with water, add the potatoes, and turn onto high heat. Once the water starts boiling, set a timer for 20 minutes.
Prep your mushrooms – remove the stems and brush lightly with olive oil. Slice half of your onion for the mushrooms and finely dice the rest to use in your steak sauce.
While the water is heating up for the potatoes, season your steak with salt and pepper and heat up a large skillet with a little bit of olive oil. Once the oil is extremely hot, add the steak. Cook 4-5 minutes on each side (can be adjusted, depending on how you like your steak – this will produce a medium-cooked steak).
Once you have the steak in the skillet, cover a baking tray with aluminum foil and add the asparagus. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss into the preheated oven and cook for about 20 minutes, or until they’re done to your liking.
Heat up oil in another skillet and add the mushrooms and sliced onions. Cook on medium-high heat until the onions are soft and translucent.
At this point you should have a timer going for your potatoes (which have hopefully started boiling by now), asparagus in the oven, and your steak should be finishing up.
Once the steak is done to your liking, remove it from the heat, put it on a plate, and cover with foil or the lid of a skillet. It should rest for a few minutes, and it should retain its heat pretty well.
Now – see all of that fun stuff left in the pan where you cooked the steak? That’s going to be the base for our sauce. Add the 2 tablespoons of butter to deglaze it, add the onions, and let it cook until they are nice and caramelized.
If you’re reading this and thinking it sounds a bit too complicated for you, let me interrupt myself to provide a reminder of how tasty this meal looks.
Seriously. It’s worth it.
By now, your potatoes should be done – drain them and mash them with a potato masher, then add in the half stick of butter and a splash or two of milk (the amount depends on the consistency you like). Once you have them to a good consistency, add in your parmesan and some garlic salt to taste.
While you’re waiting on the onions, cover the bottom of another (I know, I know) skillet (preferably a stainless one – not nonstick)with the canola oil and add the butter (in order for the scallops to cook properly, it works best to use both types of fat). While the oil is heating, pat off the scallops lightly with a paper towel and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Once the oil begins to smoke (careful not to burn it!) begin placing the scallops into the pan. The oil will pop a bit, so be careful not to get burned. Once you set the scallops down, don’t move them!
Once all of the scallops are in the pan, your onions for the sauce should be nice and caramelized. Add the wine and let the sauce simmer for a while so it can reduce. Once it has reduced to a nice, thick texture, add some salt and pepper and it’s good to go!
At this point, our asparagus is probably almost done, the steak is resting, and the mushroom/onion mixture should be just about finished. Let your sauce simmer and then rest once it’s done, and turn your focus to the scallops.
After about 2-3 minutes, you should start to see the beautiful brown caramelization start to creep up the sides of the scallops. Check to see if they’re still sticking – if they’re not (and if they have some good color on them) go ahead and flip them. Let them go another 2-3 minutes and then pull them off. If you’re not familiar with cooking scallops, they may feel underdone, but they probably aren’t. Trust me – the last thing you want is overcooked scallops!
Pull the asparagus out of the oven, and you’re ready to begin plating!
And that, my friends, is the best birthday dinner we have made in a very, very long time! It requires a lot of equipment (I think we used every pan we own!) and a bit of effort, but trust me when I say it’s amazing. You’ll love it.
Oh, and if you need some inspiration for what you could do for dessert, let me suggest our go-to decadent cookie recipe.
(Via How Sweet Eats)
The recipe can be found here and I’m not exaggerating when I say these are probably the best cookies I’ve ever eaten in my life.
With meals as good as this, I wish I could cook birthday dinners for my husband a lot more often!
Do you have any special birthday traditions with your significant other? Any favorite recipes for a fancy date night in?
