Steak, Sure, But The Risotto!

     Dinner tonight was a splurge.  Our corner grocery had good -- well, not insurmountable -- prices on ribeye steaks, so I bought a couple of small ones.*  They didn't have any lump charcoal, and I'm out, but they had "assorted hardwood" firewood and I decided to try it.  The hardwood kindling I use burns down to coals, after all.

     It turns out that a wood fire works fine in my covered grill: close the cover once it's well underway, and it smolders with little or no flame.  Splitting the wood down to grill size with a hatchet -- not an axe -- and a mallet isn't quick or especially easy, but it's not all that hard.  I'd get a real axe and a proper wedge if I was going to do it often.

     Along with the steaks, I picked up a bagged salad and some cherry tomatoes.  You're not going to find them in a salad kit: cut tomatoes don't keep.  Adding them really helps.  Some sliced olives are a plus, too. And I snagged a box of assorted fresh fancy mushrooms and Alessi brand dehydrated mushroom risotto.

     Alessi's shelf-storable pasta dishes, soups and rice have never let me down.  It's about as good as scratch-made (Italian grandmothers will disagree).  I cleaned and cut up the mushrooms -- trumpet, maitake and golden oyster -- and put them in a covered grill pan with glob of butter, parking the whole thing on the back of the grill as soon as the fire had caught.  The steaks followed in order, on a perforated stainless-steel tray, medium for me and very rare for Tam.  The rice just simmers once it's been stirred into boiling water; you set the heat on low and ignore it.

     As the steaks came off the grill, I brought in the cooked mushrooms and stirred them into the creamy risotto, and the combination smelled delicious.  It tasted delicious, too, an excellent accompaniment for the little steaks.  Throw in some well-cooked stew meat or sausage, and the rice dish could have been a main course.  I had a last few nibbles when I was clearing away the pots and pans -- it was just that good.
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* The child of Depression babies, I'm usually half-convinced the economy is about to tank, so why not have something special for supper once in a while?  Growing up, we had steak for supper most Fridays, once Dad had a good job.  He never tasted a steak until he was an adult, and he was bound and determined to make up for lost time.  These days, that would be quite an indulgence (and what would my doctor say?), but I'll have one every so often, until I get priced out.