Food: Rib-Eye with Garlic-Thyme Marinade and Beefsteak Tomato Salad

I received a wonderful housewarming gift from my cousins:

I already own Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook, and  have had wonderful experience baking cookies from scratch using her recipes.

Part I: Rib-Eye with Garlic-Thyme Marinade

I've already bookmarked some recipes that I'm interested in trying out, and today I decided to attempt the Rib-Eye with Garlic-Thyme Marinade. The recipe to which you can find on the Marthastewart.com website.

What was great about preparing this meal was that it was very economic - ribeye steak is the portion of the beef that doesn't cost as much as other cuts (e.g. sirloin, etc.). For an up and coming young professional trying to get by this was a great recipe with inexpensive ingredients (Thyme, Garlic, Olive Oil).

The biggest challenge for me was not overcooking the meat. She advised to cover the grill and cooking six to seven minutes for each side on medium-high heat turning just once.

Checking to see if the grilling pan was hot enough. 

Starting the process!

Cooked medium rare. 

Overall I'm happy with the finished product. The steak actually had flavour for only marinading it for about one hour (flipping once at the half way mark). It also went very well with HP steak sauce too.

Part II: Beefsteak Tomato Salad

For the salad I followed the Beefsteak Tomato Salad, which included shallot (substituting red sweet onion instead), red wine vinegar (substituting for balsamic vinegar since thats all I have) and olive oil (no substitution there). You can find the original recipe here.

When following instructions, I actually had to look up the term "mince" since I had no idea what it meant. Nonetheless, the recipe turned out pretty good and straight forward.

The cooking process!

A combination of tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, red onion seasoned with salt and pepper. 

The taste was delicious! It was a balance of sweet and some sour tang of the tomatoes as well. The flavours really combined well and I was very happy with the final result!

This was actually the very first time I've ever made "steak". I'll probably try a more expensive cut of beef next time!