Pan Fried Jack Daniel's Steak

I've been cooking steaks with this Jack Daniel's marinade for the longest time but I never got around to blogging about it. I must say that this marinade is totally awesome! Not only is it really simple to whip up but it has this really full flavor that both Kevin and I love. Whenever we cook up steaks using this recipe, I swear that you can smell it all the way down the hall of our apartment building. Yeah, it smells that great! Alrighty, so here's how we make pan fried steaks with the uber delicious Jack Daniel's marinade.

I believe that the cut/type of steak is really important if you want yummy juicy steaks. Don't try to skimp by buying cheap cuts of steaks. They won't usually turn out that great, no matter how well you cook them. Here we have two 10 oz strip steaks from Omaha Steaks. Look at all the marbling. Mmm mmm good! I just love Omaha Steaks, they are the best :D Allow the steaks to fully thaw (if they are frozen) and poke tiny holes all over the steaks. Then, set it aside.
Now it's time to make some marinade! Pour in some Worcestershire sauce to some Balsamic Vinaigrette. Make sure that you mix it well.
Then, add in a few squeezes of lemon juice followed by some freshly cracked black pepper.
Finally, add in a few pegs of Jack Daniel's whiskey. Both Kevin and I love Jack Daniel's, so we always have a bottle of that at home :P Now, mix everything together and it's done! Take a small whiff of the marinade. Doesn't it smell just great? Boy, best marinade ever! :D
Save about 1/3 of the marinade for the sauce later on. Place the steaks into a Ziploc bag and pour the remaining 2/3 of the sauce into it. Massage the steaks a little and pop it into the refrigerator for at least 8 hours. I usually just let it sit in the refrigerator for about 24 hours or so.
When you are ready to cook up the steaks, here's what you do. Lightly spray some cooking oil onto a pan. Once the pan is heated up, place the steaks in it. Allow it to sear on one side and then just flip it over. Do not be afraid to allow the steaks to char a little. I always love the tiny burnt bits! Cooking time varies depending on how well you want the steaks to be. We usually cook ours to about medium well. Once your steaks are done, remove them from the pan and set aside.
Time to make the sauce! Using the same pan, add in some onions. You could also add in some sliced mushrooms if you like. Saute it a little until it becomes soft, Then, add in the 1/3 of marinade that we saved earlier. The marinade will nicely deglaze your pan. Make sure you get all the yummy burnt bits off, they are just soooo good! Once your sauce begins to simmer, turn down the heat a little and it will begin to thicken. With that, the sauce is done. Pour the sauce over your steaks and it's ready to eat! I served up the steaks with some sweet potato fries and steamed broccoli. Mmmm mmmm mmmm...it always hits the spot, every time!

Our Free Steaks from Marlboro are here!!

Remember me blogging about receiving two Omaha Steaks gift certificates from Marlboro last week? Yeah, both Kevin and I chose the steaks as our Level 3 reward from the "Marlboro Country Rewards" contest/giveaway. Anyways, we received our gift certificates in the mail last week and we ordered our steaks online. Omaha Steaks sent us an email yesterday telling us that they have shipped our steaks and that we should expect it to arrive today. True enough, our friendly UPS guy brought two huge coolers to our door early this evening! Woohoo! Our steaks are here! :D

I love the Omaha Steaks cooler. They always do such a great job in keeping the steaks frozen. We would also reuse the cooler whenever we go on picnics and stuff, they are just great. Check out the shipping label. "Prepare to smile...". Oh, don't you worry. Just thinking about those yummy steaks kept me smiling all day! :P
Here's what it looks like inside the cooler. A whole big slab of dry ice at the bottom and a big box of steaks on top of it. They also included a very nice cookbook filled with various recipes. All the steaks were nice and frozen when it got here. I guess the dry ice really works wonders. We had a whole lot of fun playing with the dry ice later in the evening. Made our own volcanoes and stuff. Yes yes, I know. Two 30 something year olds playing with dry ice...how juvenile. Don't judge us, I bet you would do it too if you had two big slabs of dry ice, just sitting around. LOL! :P
Mmmm mmmm mmmmmm, check out the yummy steaks. There are six boneless strips in each box. Just look at the marbling. It looks so so so good. Each steak is approx 10 oz and about 1" thick. Boy, I can't wait to grill em up! The retail price for each box is $163.99!
Ahhhh 12 pieces of yummy steaks, all lined up in a row. Just looking at them makes my mouth water. I can't believe we now have like over $300 worth of steaks, just sitting in our freezer. Looks like we will be having uber delicious steak dinners for the coming weeks (maybe months) ahead. Thanks Marlboro for the steaks, we love them!!!

Free Steaks from Marlboro!

I have always been amazed at all the awesome gifts/prizes that Marlboro gives out for their contest and sweepstakes. If you are a regular here, you would have noticed that we have won quite a lot of stuff from Marlboro. Stuff ranging from sunglasses, a HD camcorder to a 4 days 3 nights all expense paid thip to the Marlboro Ranch in Montana. This summer, Marlboro has been running their "Marlboro Country Rewards" giveaway since July. What makes this giveaway/contest different from the rest is....everybody is a winner! Everybody wins something at the end of the day.
We received this two envelopes in the mail yesterday. Woohoo! Our gifts are finally here! Wait, hang on. You must be wondering, what do you mean by 'everybody is a winner'?. Well, here's how the giveaway works. This giveaway started in July. Everyday, Marlboro will feature a new destination (interesting places located all over America) on their website. All we need to do is log on and read about it. Then, we can collect three 'chips' by performing various stuff like rating the write up or viewing the pictures. There are three levels you can unlock, depending on the amount of chips you collected at the end of the contest period. We managed to collect enough chips to unlock the highest level, so YAY!
Wanna see what's inside the envelopes? Another envelope! LOL! Well, another envelope and a card thanking us for participating in this summer's giveaway. There are actually quite a number of prizes to choose from. The level 1 prizes are small prizes, stuff like personalized key tags or luggage tags, ashtrays, coffee and mug combos....things like that. The level 2 prizes get a little better. Among some of the nicer prizes are personalized Zippo lighters, engraved flask, a very nice looking poker set and even a harmonica! Now, we qualified for the level 3 prizes. We had six prizes to choose from. A Duluth utility pack, Lucchese cowboy boots, Weber grill, Sheplers Authentic Steer Horns, a RCA mini camcorder or Omaha Steaks gift certs. We have already gotten cowboy boots and a HD camcorder (way better than the one here) from Marlboro, so that's out. We do no need another bag or grill, so that's out too. Kevin really wanted the steer horns initially but decided against it in the end. Like seriously, what are you going to do with steer horns? Hang it in front of your Honda Civic and drive around town? :P Anyways, we both ended up getting the steaks!
Here it is! We received two gifts certificates from Omaha Steaks. Each certificate is worth 163.99 and is for 6 pieces of 10 oz Boneless Strips. There are four ways to redeem the steaks. We could either fill in our particulars and mail back the certificate to Omaha Steaks, fax in the certificate, call their 1-800 number to place our order or just redeem it online. Of course we just redeemed it online. Simple and hassle free.
Here's how it works. We just need to log into the dedicated URL that leads us directly to the offer page. Then, we just need to key in our gift certificate number and fill up our particulars. After we did that and hit "submit", an email was sent to our mailbox, saying that our steaks are on the way! Wooohoo! We should be getting our steaks by Tuesday, latest. Boy, I can't wait for our 12 pieces of yummy and juicy Omaha Steaks to arrive. Thanks Marlboro for yet another awesome gift!!!

Omaha Steaks - Fantastic Feast Promo!

We have been getting tons of mail (both snail mail and email) from Omaha Steaks for the longest time. There is always some sort of promotion going on. Kevin said that his grandparents always ordered their steaks from Omaha Steaks back in the day and he remembered them to be pretty good. He said that we should try ordering from them one of these days but we just never got around to it.We received a brochure in the mail a while back and we thought that it was a pretty good deal. Their Fantastic Feast package was going for only $49.99! Usually, promotion price for Fantastic Feast would be $69.99 (original retail price is $170!) but it was $49.99 this time around! Not only that, you get a few free gifts too. So, we decided to give it a try.

At first, we were wondering how they would ship all that meat to us. We knew that it will come in a huge reusable cooler but we were not sure if the meat would stay frozen and stuff. When our order arrived, we were really pleased to find dry ice in the cooler! So, everything was still nice and frozen. Here's what it looks like inside the cooler.
Check out all the stuff that's inside the cooler! Yes...it was a BIG cooler! :P Everything was nicely packed and labeled in individual boxes. There was also cooking instructions and nutrition labels printed on the boxes. They also included a booklet filled with awesome recipes. :D
Here's all the stuff that's in the Fantastic Feast package. 2 x Stuffed Sole with Scallops and Crab meat, 8 x Gourmet Franks, 4 x Top Sirloin Steaks, 4 x Stuffed Baked Potatoes, 4 x Boneless Pork Chops, 4 x Chicken Breast and 4 x Omaha Steak Burgers. That's a lot of food for $49.99!!

Remember I said earlier that the Fantastic Feast also came with a free gifts? Well, the original package comes with 4 pieces of Omaha Steak Burgers. Omaha Steaks threw in another 4, making it 8 pieces in total! The burgers were awesome actually, we have been grilling them up over the past few weeks.....sooooo good!
We also got a 6 piece cutlery set and a cutting board. A chefs knife, carving knife, boning knife, utility knife, paring knife and a sharpening steel. The knives aren't the best quality knives but hey, they are free! :P Overall, I think that the amount of food that we got was worth the $49.99 (even if they didn't give us the free cutlery set and cutting board :P). Yes, the portion were kinda small but taking that into consideration, I felt that it was still worth it. We will be keeping our eyes out for more Omaha Steaks deals in the future!