Week 1: Philly Cheese Steak

The first week of the year is a Friday and Saturday, so I started off with something easy. For the last month I have been craving an honest Philly Cheese Steak. Shockingly, there are no sandwich shops that make the irresistible sandwich in my area. Crazy as that is, I had also never made one, so I went to the first place I could think of, FoodNetwork.com.

I found a few recipes, and I had cooked from Emeril Lagase before so I selected his recipe. Due to copyright laws, it is probably not allowed to post the recipe, but I will provide a link to it if you click here.

To start I read the instructions, and was a little baffled by the step that requires me to pre-heat the oven when it is not used... okay, minor set back, I just won't use the oven. I started by purchasing the ingredients at the the local Holiday Grocery store. After talking to the butcher, using rib-eye would be both costly and it would fall apart after being cut there at the store. He suggested I use a Top Round Steak cut thinly.

According to RecipeTips.com, Top Round is a portion of meat cut from the upper part of the rear leg of the cow. It's a much leaner meat than the original recommendation of rib-eye, and still very flavorful. The Top Round was also a lot cheaper. Hey, I'm on a budget here! If you're big about the nutrition aspect, NutritionData.com states that the Top Round Steak has about 236 calories, 8g of fat, 0g carbs, and 40g of protein for 4 oz of meat (the portion per sandwich). Pretty healthy if you ask me. I ended up buying a pound and making four sandwiches. After purchasing enough ingredients to make 4 sandwiches, the bill was somewhere around 15 dollars.

I cooked three sandwiches with the provolone cheese and one with the American cheese. Both types of sandwiches turned out really well. I did feel that the provolone Cheese Steaks needed a little extra salt. Seeing as how American cheese is about 90% sodium, the other sandwich was perfect. I did add some Veganaise (a mayo alternative) to the sandwich just to give the bread a little extra flavor. Out of the two, I would have to say the American Cheese sandwich was the best, despite the obvious sodium overload.

Not only was the cooking easy, the prep and cook time for the dish was less than 20 minutes. For a cheap quick meal, this was by far the best sandwich I have made. I highly recommend trying this recipe. There is virtually no skill required in making this either, just make sure you have at least one metal spatula to cut the meat during cooking.

Week 1 Successful. My house is not burnt down and the stomach is satisfied.