All Hot! (Steak Marsalaki)

Joe wants steak for dinner. It's A Group's last night, and his turn to cook. He stops at the supermarket on the way to work, picks up 12 Idaho potatoes from the bin, puts ten cans of corn into his basket and heads to the meat counter. There, to his delight, displayed in the case just right and looking good enough to eat are the T-Bone steaks.

"I'll take 12," he says to the man behind the counter, who smiles, and weighs them up, and puts them into two packages and seals them with the price sticker. Joe, the perennial bachelor who wouldn't know a sale except for  the two for one special at happy hour puts them next to the potatoes and corn, considers his job well done, pays with his debit card without looking at the price and continues to work.

The damage: Six pounds of potatoes at 1.29/lb                                                            $7.74

                         Ten cans of corn at 2.29/can                                                                   $22.90

                          Twelve T-bones, weighing 8.50 pounds @  $12.99 lb                   $110.40

Total Cost    $141.04 

Divide that by the 12 firefighters on A Group

Total Each   $12.00

Tell a firefighter his dinner cost twelve bucks. Go ahead, I dare you. Double dog dare you.

On second thought…

Mike, the old goat with a wife and kids is cooking for D Group the next night and wants steak for dinner. He stops at the market, fills up a bag with the broccoli, throws a 10 pound bag of potatoes in, goes to the meat counter, sees the T-bones at $12.99, laughs to himself and gets six pounds of flank steak.. To the salad dressing aisle we go, pick up a bottle of Lowry's Teriyaki sauce and Marsala cooking wine. Back to the veggie aisle for a couple Vidalia onions and two red peppers and two pounds of sliced mushrooms.

The Damage:  Steak                                                        $17.94

                           Onions peppers and mushrooms     $8.98

                           Potatoes                                                  $2.99

                           Broccoli                                                    $4.55

                           Marinades                                                $5.00

Total- $38.96

Total each-  $3.25

Charge everybody four or five bucks and put the rest in the dinky and you're a hero!

But, in the immortal words of Ladder 2 Chef extraordinaire Jeff Andrews, "This better not suck."

Steak Marsalaki (for 12)

6 pounds flank steak

2 Large red peppers

2 Large Vidalia onions

1 bottle of Lowry's Teriyaki sauce and marinade

1 bottle Marsala cooking wine

Couple bunches broccoli

Bag of potatoes

chopped garlic/salt/pepper/butter/olive oil/milk/seasonings taken from dinky (or pantry closet if you make this at home)

Take the steaks out of the package and put them into a shallow pan, pour Marsala wine and a little teriaki sauce over them and put them in the fridge. Meanwhile, fire up the grill and get a big pan of water boiling. Put an inch of water in the bottom of another pan but don't turn it on yet. Have your slaves peel, wash and quarter the potatoes while you slice the onions and peppers into 1/4 inch or so slices. Chop the broccoli and set it aside.

Put about a half stick of butter into big saute' pan, melt it,  when the butter melts, add the onions, peppers a couple of spoons of chopped garlic and salt and pepper and  the red wine. Let that cook for a while, and either have somebody you trust grill the steaks a little more than rare and a little less than medium rare or do it yourself, but that's hard, so find somebody you trust!.

Turn the pan with the inch of water on high. Put the potatoes into the big pot that should be boiling by now, add some salt and olive oil to the water and cook them till they're done. (when they fall apart easily when poked with a fork.)

In the meantime, pour the bottle of teriyaki sauce onto the peppers and onions, and add the mushrooms. Cook that little gathering until the onions are clear in the sauce is kind of bubbling on the side of the pan.

The steaks should be perfect now, find a cutting board, put that on a sheet pan and make 1 inch slices, cutting against the grain of the meat, (Google it!) Dump the broccoli into the boiling inch of water and put a lid on it. Have the designated potato masher do his thing, again, if you trust him let him add a couple sticks of butter and a few cups of milk, along with a lot of salt and pepper, maybe some garlic salt and onion powder. If you don't mind hearing, "what's this green stuff in my potatoes!" throw some parsley in there too.

Add the one inch slices of steak (and juices that you cleverly saved in the sheet pan) into the onion, pepper and mushroom mix, take the cover off the broccoli, the water from which should be evaporated, pour two or three glugs of olive oil in there with some salt and pepper, put spoons in everything, line it all up on the stove top and say the magic words…

ALL HOT!

Of course, somebody is going to say, "Where's the bread!"