Marinated Chuck Eye Steak

3 Tbsp white grape juice
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 lb chuck eye steaks, trimmed
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 large shallot, sliced
1/4 cup beef broth

Combine the first 3 ingredients in a shallow dish. Add steaks, and let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes. Remove steaks from marinade; reserve marinade. Sprinkle steaks evenly with salt and pepper.
Heat a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add steaks to pan; cook 4 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness. Remove steaks from pan; keep warm. Add shallot to pan; saute 1 minute. Add reserved marinade and broth, scraping to loosen browned bits; cook 2 minutes or until reduced by half. Spoon sauce over steaks.

Serve with Chive Smashed Potatoes and Lemon Green Beans

Emeril Lagasse Stromboli

While completing his schooling at BYU, David took a semester off to do an internship with IBM in San Jose. We stayed with my parents in Burlingame and David commuted back and forth each day. While working at IBM, some of the employees introduced David to a fantastic Italian restaurant and David would frequently stop there on the way home and bring a piping hot stromboli back for me. Many years later, I decided to try making stromboli myself and gave this recipe a shot.

Basic Pizza Dough (your favorite recipe will do)
1/2 lb hot Italian sausage, removed from casings and crumbled
1 cup sliced yellow onions
1/2 cup thinly sliced red bell peppers
1/2 cup thinly sliced green bell peppers
2 Tbsp thinly sliced jalapenos
2 Tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 lb sliced ham
1/4 lb thinly sliced pepperoni or salami
2 cups grated provolone
2 cups grated mozzarella
1 large egg, beaten with 1 Tbsp water to make an egg wash
1 cup finely grated Parmesan

Preheat the oven to 375. Grease a large baking sheet and set aside (or you can dust a baking peel with cornmeal and bake on a pizza stone). In a large skillet, cook the sausage over medium-high heat until browned and the fat is rendered, about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain well on paper towels. Discard all but 1 Tbsp of fat from the pan. Add the onions, bell peppers, and jalapeno and cook, stirring, until very soft (4-5 minutes). Add the garlic and Italian seasoning and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and cool. Punch down pizza dough and divide in half. On a lightly floured surface, roll out half of the dough to a large rectangle, about 10 x 14 inches. Spread half of the cooled sausage mixture across the dough leaving a 1-inch border. Overlapping slightly, layer half of the ham, pepperoni, provolone, and mozzarella over the top. Using a pastry brush, paint the border of 1 long edge with egg wash. Starting at the opposite long end without egg wash, roll up the dough into a cylinder, pinching the edges to seal. Place on the prepared baking sheet and repeat with the remaining ingredients. Let the dough rise 20-30 minutes. Brush the top of the stromboli with egg wash. Bake until nearly completely golden brown and starting to crisp, about 20 minutes. Sprinkle each stromboli with parmesan cheese and return to the oven until the cheese is melted and the dough is golden brown, about 5 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes. Slice thickly and serve. Yield: 6 servings.

Note: we love the pizza sauce at our house, so I added a couple of spoonfuls of my favorite pizza sauce to the meats and cheeses before roling up the stromboli. You may also want to heat a small bowl of pizza sauce for dipping.

Cha Siu Bao (Steamed BBQ Pork Buns)

2 Tbsp oyster sauce
2 Tbsp hoisin sauce
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp sesame oil
1/3 cup Chinese rice wine
6 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch
2 Tbsp water
2 Tbsp canola oil
1 lb BBQ pork (char siu) diced into 1/4 inch cubes (I couldn't get char siu so I just used pork tenderloin, diced it and cooked it in a skillet
1/2 cup dried onion flakes soaked in 1/4 cup of water
2 Tbsp sesame seeds, roasted
20 pieces of 2x2 wax paper
dough for Samoan Buns (find in poultry section)

Prepare the dough. Mix all the sauce ingredients (oyster sauce, hoisin, soy, sesame oil, wine, sugar, cornstarch and water) together in a bowl. Heat the oil in a saucepan. Add all the sauce mixture into the pan. Stir. Add the cooked pork to the saucepan. Cook on low until the sauce glazes the pork. Add the reconstituted dried onion and sesame seeds and toss together to mix. Let the filling cool before proceeding.
Make buns following same procedure used for Samoan Buns. Cook for 15 minutes in steamer.