Leftovers in a Pan

The Fiance has been in the mood for Outback a lot lately. I don't know what it is - it's not the steak since he always gets pasta. It makes no sense really but I've come to accept that he's just full of adorable, incomprehensible quirks. And I've come to terms with his Outback obsession, aided by the way they do their sides - any restaurant that can manage to keep their asparagus and green beans tender-crunchy gets a gold star in my book.

So.

Outback.

Unlike the very odd Fiance I get steak. The problem is after the salad and the sides and the baked potato, I almost never manage to finish the steak itself. But I do always take it home.

A few days ago, we were in a conundrum. The Fiance wanted dinner, he didn't want to cook and I wanted to use up leftovers.

Thus was born:

Leftovers in a Pan
-the second to last bacon slice
-two leftover steaks of medium size (maybe 12 oz?)
-half a zucchini
-the last carrot
-a scrounged up onion
-the last tablespoon of diced garlic (I peel and food processor several heads of garlic at a time. It's a weird nervous habit.)
-a can of broth - I used chicken but you can probably use anything you like
-2 tablespoons flour
-a dash of brown gravy mix
-dried thyme
-salt and pepper

First up. I heated a stainless steel (do not use a non-stick for this - if you do, you will regret it) pan with olive oil. That's my default fat but you can easily use butter or regular oil. Whatever you like. (See how democratic I am?) Then all those veggies got a very small dice (my baby doesn't like veggies, he thinks they're icky), but you can dice them larger if you prefer. They went into the pan with the garlic and were left to play on their own. If you discount me occasionally stirring them that is.

Now, I know my baby loves bacon. It's his first love. Before women and gaming, there was bacon. So when I'm trying to sneak veggies into his tummy, bacon is a good way to go. So I chopped up the bacon slice. Then I sliced up the steak.

The veggies were more or less where I wanted them - softened, kinda translucent. I took them out of pan and let them sit in a nice, comfy bowl. Then the pan got the bacon treatment. I have to admit, one slice of bacon isn't very much and even diced up it looked kind of lonely. But I stayed strong. Bacon is delicious but not so good for you. One's enough in this dish.

When the bacon was semi browned up, I add the steak slices. There, now the bacon had friends.

When all the meat was nicely browned and the pan had all those bits in it, I removed the steak and bacon to another plate. Then pan was sad for a moment, but I made it happier by adding more olive oil and making a quick roux with the flour.

There's no trick to roux really. Just mix a lot or it will clump.

Then add a liquid. I poured in probably 3/4 of a can of broth but it's really all in how much sauce you want. Don't forget to go slow and stir a lot though.

Then I dumped in some brown gravy mix and a bunch of thyme and stirred again. It looked quite saucy at this point so I took the veggies and meat and put them back in. I gave the mess another stir, set the heat to simmer and wandered off to... do something else.

After a little simmering, the sauce was nicely thickened, the veggies were cleverly masked and dinner looked very tempting.

I served it in a bowl over bite sized, roasted potatoes.

So good.

-Vixen