Once upon a midnight dreary Wednesday evening while I pondered weak and weary over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore after walking the dog 2 miles and he was still wanting more…Ah distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December cool Septembr and each separate dying ember stomach growl wrought its ghost upon the floor.  Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sough to borrow from my cookbooks surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore Dinner, for the rare and radiant maiden mealtime whom the angels name Lenore Dinner nameless here forevermore….

What?  I have a lot of time on my hands this evening.

The gist of it is that once again, Josh and I were faced with the intrinsically existential question of…”What are we going to make for dinner?”  Then Josh left to (seriously) test out Volvos and buy canning supplies (you just can’t make this stuff up) and I was on my own to figure out the answer to tonight’s eternal question.

Well, for me it was pretty easy.  Josh would probably not have been interested but hey, he wasn’t here!  Besides, we had all the ingredients.  Making steak pizziola just made sense.

What is steak pizziola?  Well, it’s pretty much what it sounds like: steak cooked in…well, pizza toppings.  Notably a delicious tomato sauce and pizza-appropriate veggies.  We had just gotten a few small sirloin tip steaks (on sale!) and I pulled two out and froze the rest.

We also had canned crushed tomatoes (I generally use the San Marzano brand when possible; if you have to use canned tomatoes from a store, they usually taste the best), sweet peppers, garlic, red onion and scallions (from our farm share this week!) and on the side, we had (farm share) potatoes and yellow squash.  Sounds like a dinner to me.

Really it was the farm share that made this meal entirely possible.  It was a great week for the farm share—we got a huge amount of tomatoes, peppers and summer squash, plus a good-sized celery root, or celeriac, and some winter squash, and big bag of beans.  Be still, my beating heart!

Steak Pizziola

2 sirloin tip steaks, about 7oz each
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1 giant clove garlic, or two smaller cloves, thinly sliced
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium Hungarian wax pepper, chopped
1 c. crushed tomatoes
1 large sprig thyme
olive oil
salt and pepper
2 tsp red pepper flake
2 tbsp chopped green onion

Heat a bit of olive oil in a good-sized skillet over high heat.  Season steaks with salt and pepper and sear on each side before removing from pan and turning down heat.

Sautê the onion, garlic and peppers in the meat juices until soft; add the meat back in and pour in the tomatoes, thyme sprig and red pepperflake.

Cover and cook for about 35-40 minutes over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, until meat is cooked through and cuts easily.

Remove thyme sprigs and fold in green onions.

We served ours with a side of roasted purple potatoes and yellow squash, seasoned with just olive oil, salt and pepper.  Delish!

…oh and dessert?  Pumpkin pie spiced chocolate chip cookies.  More on that later.