Tonight we did Pinwheel Steaks! To be honest, I had never eaten a Pinwheel Steak, or even heard of them, for that matter. Always up for a challenge, I set out to find out how to cook them! After a little digging, though, I came across a recipe on the Eating Well site that sounded good. The trick with this cut of meat is getting it cooked to your liking. My family prefers our meat well done, which is a little hard to do since it's wound around itself. If you prefer your meat not so rare, cook it slowly on a lower heat so it has time to cook all the way through without burning on the outside. I served these with baked sweet potatoes and a garden salad.
Flank Steak Pinwheels
INGREDIENTS:
2/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes
2 cups boiling water
1 package Cordray's Pinwheel Steaks
1 clove garlic, minced
3 Tbs light herbed cheese spread, such as Boursin (I used an herbed cream cheese)]
1 cup baby spinach
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Bamboo skewers or toothpicks
PREPARATION:
1. Preheat grill to high.
2. Place sun-dried tomatoes in a bowl; pour boiling water over them and let steep until
softened, about 10 minutes. Drain and chop.
3. Mix garlic with cheese spread.
4. Unroll one pinwheel steak and spread cheese mixture down the length of the strip. Top
with the sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. Starting at one edge of a long side, roll the
steak back up tightly, tucking in the filling as you go.
5. Sprinkle salt and pepper all over the outside of the steak roll.
6. Secure the loose end of the steak roll with a skewer or toothpick.
7. Grill one side then flip gently with a spatula to the other side. Cook 3-4 minutes per side
for medium-rare or more for your taste.
**Some filling may slide out as it's cooking- that's ok. Either remove skewers before serving or warn your diners!
These look very pretty and like they took a long time to prepare, but they were actually fairly easy. My husband and I enjoyed branching out and trying something new. The kids weren't quite sure about the sun-dried tomatoes! The baby loved the cooked cheese mixture on his little bites of steak. =) If you have any other delicious Pinwheel Steak recipes, please share!
Happy Cooking,
Ellen
This one's from the night Matt brought the big fellow in. The big buck was taken here in Ravenel!
These photos were taken during late summer, early fall as we piled up hay for the winter. Our cows graze at will on grass all year. When the first killing frost comes, the grass stops growing. We plant some winter grazing, but don't have enough acreage to support them just on grass. So we bale hay in summer, stack it, and cover it to feed the cows during the time the grass is dormant. The last photo shows what's left here as we end February! We do have other stores of hay, so don't worry, they won't go hungry! But it does explain why farmers have the biggest smiles when the first warm days of spring begin.
I am always amazed at the HUGE equipment that the big corporate farms use. We go to the show every now and then, and come back home thinking we are really small, maybe even minuscule farmers! The trip was gorgeous, running through miles and miles of snow covered mountains. We even saw an elk grazing beside the Interstate in Tennessee! You know we had to turn around at the next exit to go back to see that one!
