2016 Western Trip – Day 12 – Dinner At Our Place

During our last visit to Denver, our local friends came over to the coach for supper and even though the rain ran us inside, it was still a memorable enough experience that they wanted to do it again.  As it turned out, this was our plan as well and we had brought a whole beef tenderloin from home for the occasion.  The dinner party included five Denver friends and the three of us so after trimming, I sliced it up into a nice steak for each of us and we opted to make it into Steak Oscar. 

But before the entrée we had two appetizers – Fried Corn ala Beverly and Green Beans ala Lea Ann using ingredients from Lulu’s – both were very good.  Bev tried to convince me that fried corn was not an appetizer but I looked up the definition – “a small dish of food served before the main part of a meal” – so I think the beans and corn qualified as we only ate small portions.

For the steak we used a recipe from Taste Of Home and adapted it for our eight servings

Ingredients:

2 envelopes bearnaise sauce mix (Knorrs)

1½ bunches fresh asparagus, trimmed (6-8 spears/serving based upon size)

¾ pound fresh crabmeat (I used Blue Star canned claw meat)

4 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 tablespoon lemon juice

8 beef tenderloin steaks 

¼ teaspoon paprika (I omitted this, actually I forgot it)

Directions:

1. Prepare bearnaise sauce according to package directions. Meanwhile, place asparagus in a steamer basket; place in a large saucepan over 1 in. of water. Bring to a boil; cover and steam for 8-10 minutes or until crisp-tender.

2. In a large skillet, saute crab in butter until heated through. Add garlic and cook 1 minute longer. Stir in lemon juice; keep warm.

3. Grill steaks to desired doneness, top with crab mixture, asparagus, and bearnaise sauce. Sprinkle with paprika.

To cook everything, we used our electric hot plate, two burner propane stove, and small Weber charcoal grill and I was surprised we could pull everything together at the right times, but it worked out just fine.

Based on the comments, everyone enjoyed their meal (or they were just being nice J ) and we topped it off with Strawberry/Rhubarb pie, that we bought frozen from Lulu’s market, along with a scoop of ice cream.  Turns out the pie was from The Village PieMaker in Eustis, NE (pop – about 400) and started by Judith Larsen in her home in 2003 and has grown from 35 pies/day to about 1200 today.  I’m hoping we find them again during our CO travels – we were within 13 miles of Eustis last year and wish we’d known about them then.

After supper, we just sat around until nearly dark and visited.

This is a shot of the three blogger buddies – Heather (Rocky Mountain Cooking), Lea Ann (Cooking On The Ranch), and yours truly.  

Once again, it was a memorable event (just sprinkled this time) and I look forward to the next one - maybe we can convince them to come see us in Tennessee.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/31/16 event date