Pan-Seared Steak

Last week I heard someone on the radio mention steaks and martinis, and I got a little obsessed.  We had the martinis with a cheese called Rosemary's Waltz, from MA.  It's a goat cheese with rosemary and juniper berries, and it was all right, but they could have seasoned it better--the herbs were just stuck on the top, and there wasn't much flavor in the cheese itself.

For dinner I made Cook's pan-seared strip steaks, and boy were they good!  They're so thick, you put them in a slow oven first to warm them through, then pan-sear and make the red wine mushroom sauce.  The potatoes were from the NYTimes, roasted with figs and garlic, and the brussels sprouts were pan-cooked with pecans.  This dinner was great!  The only thing I would change is to put the figs in with the potatoes a little later in the roasting--they got sort of hard.  We drank a wine Craig's dad gave him for his birthday, Robert Mondavi 2005 Cabernet, which was great.