Mock Ribeyes... Cooking with Elliott

I love it when my son decides that he wants to cook something. Let's face it... I love it when my 14 yr old son wants to do anything with me. (Excuse me a moment!) Yes, Elliott! I know that you will be 15 in 2 1/2 months!

Anyway, he said to me the other day, "Mama, I want to cook something!" So we get into the conversation of what to cook and how. He loves to grill, but our grill bit the dust quite a while back and we haven't been able to replace it yet. He decides on steak, but he says, "Mama don't get anything too expensive. I don't want to waste good meat if it doesn't turn out good!" As a Caterer, Cook and Mama that budgets a dollar to death, I was getting a little teary! He's really been paying attention! Good food is too precious to waste! So, I bought us some little chuck-eyes for a few dollars at the grocery store while shopping for the week, and here goes...

He pulled out his ingredients he wanted to use and started opening the steaks. He then turns to me and says, "What? You mean I'm cooking for you, and you are not even going to put it on your website?!?!?! You could at least take a picture and acknowledge that I cooked for you and maybe even say 'thank you' !" (teenage sarcasm) Sooo, I got the camera and started taking pictures. He had me take the picture at the top of the page, saying that he needed a new profile picture anyway!

He decided not to use the tenderizing mallet that I suggested.

Instead, he decided to go with a fork to tenderize and

get the marinade into the meat! Good choice! 

Poking both sides with a fork...

In the bag, he added several shakes of Worcestershire Sauce, a good squirt of ketchup, a little mustard, 3 garlic cloves mashed through the garlic press, a 1/2 tsp of Black Ops Seasoning and some salt. No pepper. He decided that the Black Ops seasoning had enough spice to round it all out!

He added the steaks to the marinade and 

rubbed it in good, letting it sit for a while to soak in.

The final step was to spray the pan with oil and heat the pan.

Once the pan was smoking hot, he quickly

seared the steaks on each side,

to seal in the juices.

Then, they went into the

oven at 400 degree for about 5 minutes.

Chuck-eyes are not the kindest type of meat to work with, but these were GREAT! Elliott had the perfect marinade and the right amount of seasoning... notice he's just like his Mama when it comes to measuring! (And I guessed that the Black Ops was about 1/2 tsp, but we would use more next time. We weren't sure about the heat, but the flavoring is awesome!!! Click on the link above for info on how to get your own Black Ops Seasonings! Or click here BlackOpsFlavor on Facebook and 'like' them on Facebook.

I'm proud of my son for trying new things and trusting his instincts when it comes to the flavors he likes. Even though he says that he doesn't like cooking that much, he shines when he puts his mind to it... I just love having him in the kitchen with me! :-)