Bleu Cheese Mushroom Flank Steak

Johnnycakes has gone "all Raichlen", as in grill master Steve Raichlen, on me. He received the book "How to Grill" by Steve Raichlen for his birthday and has been his own grill master ever since. He's always been a fan of Steve's public television show Barbecue University, but the cookbook has really ignited his passion for grilling. While I don't think the steak came right out of the cookbook, it was certainly the inspiration. On a side note, I think Steve Raichlen is from Baltimore. Can anyone confirm this factoid?

The preparation for the Bleu Cheese Mushroom Flank Steak really began last night when he decided to show me up, as usual, in the kitchen. I was busy carving a pumpkin for homemade pumpkin pie filling, which is no small feat (a future post), while he decided to begin preparing tonight's dinner.

He began by slicing the flank steak in half so the meat was very thin and flat and placed the beef on top of a sheet of aluminum foil. He then seasoned the beef with salt and pepper and crumbled blue cheese. As you can see in the photo, he smeared the bleu cheese into the meat for an even flavor. He followed that by thinly slicing white mushrooms using an egg slicer and spreading them on top of the meat. He then rolled the meat together in the foil, sort of like a jelly roll.

The meat sat in the refrigerator soaking in all the flavors all day before we put it on the grill after work. He grilled the meat in the foil for twenty minutes on each side until cooked.

In an attempt to be helpful, I steamed some frozen broccoli spears and sliced sweet potato fries using a crinkle cutter. After slicing the sweet potatoes, I tossed them in extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and baked them for 40 minutes at 350 degrees and 5 minutes at 500 degrees. Unfortunately, they got a little toasty since we were preoccupied with slicing the steak. I've been burning stuff lately!

I made a tasty dipping sauce for the sweet potatoes. I prefer to dip sweet potato fries in a mayonnaise based condiment as opposed to ketchup.

Garlic Lemon Mayo

1/4 cup of Kraft Light Mayonnaise

1/4 fresh lemon, squeezed

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine the above ingredients. Chill for 30 minutes before serving.

As you might suspect, the dinner was delicious. You could smell the blee cheese as soon as we brought the meat inside from the grill. Unfortunately, the roll fell apart a bit when we sliced it but it was tasty, all the same.

I know Johnnycake's is always outdoing me when it comes to kitchen creativity, but can I really complain? He can be my grill master any day!