Steak Tips!

I purchased the steak and marinated it the night before. Missing from the marinade ingredients pictured here, is ketchup.
Oops! I at first forgot to 1/2 this recipe so my amounts this time were skewed. But it still turned out delicious and just goes to show that you most always should feel the freedom to stray from a recipe!
I've made this before (sooo tasty) but this time I used:
1/2 cup ketchup (Heinz is the fave)
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar (ugh, sugar!)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup worcestershire sauce (the newer "thick" Lea & Perrins had a coupon on it + on sale)
1/4 cup A-1 (this stuff is expensive to begin with)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar (there are some acrid ones out there, "Spectrum" organic is pretty good)

Put ingredients in sauce pan, heat gently but not boiling. Stir often to blend. Basically you want the sugar to dissolve. Allow to cool then pour over your steak tips, cover and refrigerate overnight.


I love my new Tramontina 2-quart sauce pan! Though it was purchased from the "dreaded" Wal-Mart, this particular pot was made (very well) in U.S.A. According to other info. I have seen, they are also manufactured in Brazil and China. The more expensive and very similar All-Clad is manufactured in the U.S.


Near East Rice Pilaf is a staple in our cupboard. I buy multiple boxes when on sale. The only store-brand equivalent I have found is Stop & Shop rice pilaf. All others are really heavy on the sodium.
Since we are feeding 2 1/4 beings, it makes perfect sense to divide one package in half. You may want to pour the rice in a glass measuring cup to divide properly; I just shake up and squeeze out half the seasoning mix. Water is 1 3/4c for a pull package. I figure, somewhere between the 3/4-1c mark is fine. If after cooking the whole time and you have leftover water, just raise the heat and stir often so the rice doesn't stick and the water cooks off. This usually doesn't happen but it did tonight. Maybe my heat was too low.
The kitchen help was better occupied matching food on the "touch".
A sneak look at the cooking rice and boiling green beans.
I prefer to boil freshly cut green beans for 4 minutes. Oops! I was distracted and they went for more like 7 minutes. They began to turn an olive-green color (the sign of overcooking) but caught them in time and ran cold water over them to halt the cooking.
The pan was still warm so the little pat of butter melted.
I also like marjoram on them and a little lemon zest. These overcooked beans ended up being quite tender; not too bad.
The oven was on broil with the iron grill pan under the broiler, preheating since I put the rice on 20 minutes earlier. You want your pan nice and hot!
Time to pull the tips from marinade.
Sizzle, sizzle! Burning sugar is a smoky operation. We shut all the doors in the kitchen and open all the windows (we don't have a ventilated stove). It is so worth it!
The technique is the same for when we cook a 1" thick steak: 4 minutes on each side.
Think hatch marks: 2 minutes, rotate. 2 minutes, flip.
2 minutes, rotate. 2 minutes, remove from heat.
Put on a plate and cover with foil. Let sit 5 minutes to continue cooking (and cool off).
The plate, uncovered!
Slice it up and serve!
Hey! You have more rice on your plate!