Pan seared rib-eye steak, tater tots, collard greens and corn

This is the penultimate dinner of our vacation and I know that when we get home there will be no more butter, steaks, tater tots, and wine. I have really enjoyed the respite from being super careful about what I eat but I know that this fantasy world cannot continue. I have tried to balance things out somewhat with lots of exercise but I won’t be surprised to see a temporary gain of about 3 lbs. I have no doubt that I can be back to my goal weight in a week. The problem with most of us, though, is once we go on an eating bender we don’t put on the brakes after the vacation is over.

Since we do not have a grill here our son cooked the steaks in a frying pan using a new technique we saw on America’s Test Kitchen. You start the steaks in a dry cold pan, turn the heat to high, and flip the steak every two minutes. The fat renders slowly. After the first couple of flips turn the heat to medium and keep flipping until the steak is medium rare or how ever you like it. You are supposed to do this in a non-stick pan but since we don’t have one here we did add a little butter, thyme, and garlic to the pan and basted the steak. They turned out really well.

As far as the rest of the dinner was concerned, I made the collard greens with some garlic, onion, stem pieces, chiffonade of the leaves, and corn just sautéed for a few minutes. The tater tots cooked in the oven. It was another great dinner!