Sunday Supper - Steak, Onions and Spinach Rice Pilaf

Yesterday I made the mistake of watching cooking shows after the gym and before lunch.  It's never good to watch food shows when you're hungry but I was watching Rachael Ray and she made steak with oregano sauce and spinach rice pilaf.  Her recipe is here.  As usual, I didn't follow her recipe to the letter but it did inspire me.  

First I toasted up some orzo in butter and olive oil for about 2 minutes then added in about 1/2 of a chopped sweet onion and cooked up for another 5 minutes or so.  See how nice and toasty brown the orzo gets?  Then I added in a cup of long grain rice and a little more than 2 cups of chicken broth.  If your broth is low in salt, you might need to add more salt but you can do it at the end once you've tasted it.  Bring the broth to a boil, cover, turn down the heat to simmer and cook for about 20 minutes or until the rice is done.

A couple minutes before the rice is done, stir in a bowlful of chopped spinach, sprinkle with some grated nutmeg, cover and take the pot of rice off the flame. 

When the rice is cooking, season the steak and let it sit out until you're ready to cook it.  I bought thin sliced top round and just seasoned it liberally with salt, pepper and olive oil.  To serve with the steak, I sauteed up a sliced sweet onion with a little bit of chopped garlic, red chile flakes and fresh chopped oregano.  I forget how fragrant fresh oregano is and it was lovely with the steak and onions.  Anyway, once the onions were cooked, I added in a pat of butter and the juice of half of a lemon.  As for the steak, I cooked it in some olive oil only for a few minutes each side since the steaks I bought were so thin (I bought thin sliced top round). 

 

The steak was especially delicious with the onions seasoned with the oregano and I really liked the citrus flavor from the lemon.  The rice was delicious and while I'm sure it's tasty with the feta as Rachael Ray does it, I didn't miss it.

And last, I have a confession.  While I was cleaning up, I noticed that the pan I had cooked the steaks in had lots of meaty juices left in it so I sopped all the juices up with a piece of crusty Italian bread and that was my dessert.  I think it was the best part of the meal!