Cowboy Steaks

When our kids were young the favourite school fund raiser was selling chocolate bars or chocolate coated almonds. Sorry but these were not a huge hit in our family that has never been into sweets. As if that wasn't bad enough when then got into Boy Cubs and Brownies they sold apples and cookies. The only thing that sold for us and I didn't mind buying was the apples. Fast forwarding to the school fund raisers of today we are able to get a lot of rather neat foods. True they might not be something I would rush out to buy but they are a far cry from the standard chocolate bars or cookies.

Cowboy Steaks

I'm sorry but if a kid rings my doorbell selling something for their school or organization, I am buying. This is one way I support my community. I'm frugal but I will spend a bit more than I normally would because it goes to a good cause. Besides it inspires the young ones. Last year we scored a few good deals this way.

Last year a local soccer team was selling meat deals. Now this was rather good in that you bought the coupons for the meat in the spring but you had until the end of August to turn in the coupons at the butchershop. I thought this was a nice way to do it because I could support their team then pick up my meat when I wanted it.

One of the packages was 5 lb of cowboy steaks. Not only was I supporting a local team I was supporting a Canadian company. The steaks are distributed from Leadbetters in Orillia, Ontario through their retail store, a few select retail stores and through fund raising events. The steaks are tenderized with papain, bromelain and are lightly seasoned. They come frozen. As steaks go these are very tender, moist steaks.

Cooking

I thawed two of the steaks for dinner Wednesday night. Originally I planned on grilling the steaks but by the time my husband arrived home the sun had set and freezing rain had set in. Grilling outdoors was not all that appealing and grilling indoors meant using the downdraft that still isn't hooked up after moving in. [Unbelievable! We have to drill through a thick cement foundation. My husband was unsure how to do this so put it off until I complained a lot. Long story short, the recent estimate was $350 so now we are renting the blade and borrowing the special drill so grilling indoors will be in the very near future :)] So we decided to pan fry.

Most of the time you get to see the food nicely plated and ready to serve but these looked lovely while they were cooking. My husband added cubed, pre-cooked potatoes, onions and slice mushrooms to the fry pan after the steaks were lightly seared. Everything was cooked in one pan with the steak added first then the mushrooms and onions with finally the potatoes. The steaks lived up to their reputation of being very, very tender.