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After Mark’s trek to the Des Moines Farmers Market last week, he came up with an amazingly awesome idea for dinner. He’d picked up a batch of garlic focaccia bread (and I wish I knew where he bought it from, because I’d love to credit them — not to mention, get MORE). I had some steak in the fridge from grilling a few nights previous. Thus, his idea was born.

Grilled Steak and Blue Cheese Sammies on Garlic Focaccia Bread

1 large chuck steak, grilled to taste (I like medium rare), sliced thin
1 loaf garlic focaccia bread, sliced into 4 quarters, then sliced lengthwise for sandwiches
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T butter
1 avacado
1/2 c blue cheese crumbles
baby leaf lettuce
steak sauce or hot sauce

Heat a small skillet over medium. Butter and spread garlic on the bread. Toast bread until brown and crispy. Repeat with all slices. Set aside. To assemble sandwiches, place steak, avacado, blue cheese, lettuce and choice of sauce on the sandwich. Serve warm. Makes 4 sandwiches.

Sorry I’m a terrible recipe-writer, but that’s pretty much what we did. It was amazing. Check out the photos. They’re totally drool-worthy.

Focaccia, pre-grilling

Mark grilling the bread

Of course, Mark added more garlic to his bread after toasting.

Sandwiches, almost ready to go — sans lettuce

And the finished product … almost too big for me to eat.

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Mark was challenged last weekend. The task: make dinner without going to the grocery store.  He could only use what I had in the apartment.

Could he do it?

Was there really any question? This kid knows his stuff. He pulled through. And in a fancy way.

I’m not including a recipe this time because we’re going to refine it with all the changes we talked about during dinner, but it was still amazingly delicious. The list of ingredients included: lasagne noodles, tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, fontina cheese, basil, italian chicken sausage, garlic … I think that might have been it. Not sure what order. He made a sauce of some sort out of the cheeses and rolled the lasagne noodles around the sausage. I added the basil towards the end (I LOVE BASIL. Especially fresh basil).

My addition to dinner was the garlic toast. I actually used rye bread instead of my normal wheat. I will share a recipe for that (so you don’t walk away feeling cheated!)

Calee’s Garlic Toast

(recipe is per slice of bread — because I may or may not just make one piece occasionally)
1 slice bread (I like Sarah Lee 45 Calories and delightful)
1.5 T olive oil
italian spices
1/2 t minced garlic (or less if you’re into that)
2 T parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400°.  Mix all ingredients except the bread.  Pour or spread onto the slice of bread. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until toasted.

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