Steak Tips with Mushroom Sauce

Please forgive my lack of posting of late. It's been a strange beginning of the new year for me regarding my kitchen activities. Other than my submissions for a couple foodie events, I just have not cooked anything new that I haven't already blogged about until this past weekend! I really don't know what my problem is (hopefully was). Thankfully this past Sunday morning, I woke with a huge desire to spend most of my day in the kitchen. It was cold and rainy outside and the only things that I wanted to do was cook and wash clothes. I know.. the clothes thing.. I'm weird.. but I love how my house smells in the winter while doing laundry, call me kooky. =) And so I took out a very nice sirloin and made up my mind that I was going to do something different with it. I spent a good portion of my morning going through some of my cookbooks and then online - and as I'm finding more often than not, I found the recipe I wanted to make on allrecipes.com. Steak Tips with Mushroom Sauce - yum! I haven't had that in YEARS. This recipe was quite good and we've decided that I'll need to make this again. The mushroom sauce is dark, rich and hearty. The flavor is outstanding - beefy, mushroom-y & onion-y. It was a snap to pull together with hardly any prep and I had dinner on the table in less than an hour. I chose to serve these over buttered noodles, but rice or smashed potatoes would work nicely. A nice sized hunk of crusty bread is also recommended to sop up the last of the delicious sauce. Steak Tips with Mushroom Sauce Courtesy of AllRecipes.com and Amy The recipe below includes the changes I made. To see the original recipe, click Amy's name. l pound sirloin steak, cut into bite sized pieces 1 (10.5 ounce) can beef consomme 16 oz. of a good beef stock 1 small carton white button mushrooms, sliced 2-3 TBS. butter 1 clove garlic, chopped 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, or to taste 1 shallot, finely chopped 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour Preheat a medium skillet to medium-high heat and melt 1 TBS. butter. Add sirloin pieces and cook until desired doneness. Remove steak and keep warm under foil. In same skillet, melt another TBS. of butter and sautee the shallot until transparent, then add mushrooms, and cook, uncovered, until browned, about 10 minutes. Remove mushrooms from pan, and set aside. Deglaze the pan with the can of beef consomme and half the beef stock. Increase heat, and bring to a boil. Allow the mixture to boil until it has reduced by 1/3. When the sauce is reduced, stir in the remaining beef broth, and garlic. Return to a boil, and continue to cook for another 5 to 10 minutes. Sauce will be thin like au jus. Whisk in flour, and cook until the sauce is the desired thickness. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Stir in the mushrooms and steak. Serve over buttered noodles, rice or smashed potatoes. My Notes: I only used about a pound of sirloin steak for the 2 of us and substituted more beef broth and a can of consomme for the wine in the original recipe due to the fact that I was too lazy to run up to the store to buy a bottle. :P I also subbed button mushrooms for the portobello because they are what I had on hand - but next time I'll most definitely use portobello, as I'm sure they add so much more flavor. A HUGE, GIANT THANK YOU!! To my dear, sweet friend Meeta who went above and beyond to teach me how to take a focused picture with my new camera. lol Seriously, I was ready to take the damn thing back and buy a disposable camera until she taught me the correct way to use it. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Now I heart my new lil camera. :) Ohh and someone asked.. it's a Canon PowerShot S2 SI, very different from my lil Olympus C150 that only had 2 bottons. heee!