Just a Wednesday dinner

This week, Heather and I worked it out that I would cook dinner on Wednesday and Friday.  About mid-day Wednesday, she called me to say that she was going to make a stop at Fred Meyer, and if I needed anything, which I did.  It was all there in our shared Remember The Milk groceries list, so she said she would get it all too.  I was planning to shop after work, so it was nice that she was able to combine it to her trip.
Except she hardly shops at Fred Meyer at all and had to look all over the store for the things on my list. She told me last night that it took her past all kinds of processed foods, which she found to be really gross, as we've made big changes to the way we eat in our house.  I was grateful that she picked up the things we had on the grocery list - it was a great collaboration.
She did, however, get what I asked for on my list.  I had cut and paste some ingredients right from the recipe and didn't know how expensive they were.  I probably would have downgraded the steak from boneless rib-eye to something a little more affordable, but she went ahead and got it for me.  It was a nice steak and made Wednesday dinner quite nice.

Pan-seared rib-eye steaks with porcini and rosemary rub and roasted acorn squash with pomegranates and roasted pumpkin seeds. Photo by Heather.

Growing up, I hated squash, with a passion.  I think it stems from how the microwave was so popular in the late 70's and 80's.  You can microwave squash and its "done" in about 15 minutes.  Or you can roast it in an oven for about an hour plus time for pre-heating. The time investment is worth it.  I've grown to love roasted butter nut squash, so I decided to branch out and try a recipe from Sunset Magazine.
As we're eating Paleo-ish and I really enjoy cooking and am quite the recipe clipper, I'm always on the lookout for recipes that just happen to also be paleo.  The Roast Squash with Pomegranates, Honey and Roasted Pumpkin seeds had all the right stuff, and Heather had bought some pomegranates at Costco, so I decided to give it a try.  I'd never eaten delicata squash before and unfortunately, my grocery store was out of it.  It might be an earlier winter squash.  But I made it with acorn squash instead and it was great.  In fact, as a testament to how good it was, Kid 2 actually had seconds of the squash!
As Heather and I were talking about the steak she bought (at $10 per pound), she said that she would just season it with salt and pepper and cook it.  But I had a recipe from the Seattle Times for a porcini and rosemary rub for the steak.  Again, this recipe was paleo out of the box and was pretty easy to prepare.  It did require some marination time, but since I was making a later dinner so the kids could get home from swim practice, I had extra time.
The steak is quite simple to prepare. I ground the porcini mushrooms into a powder in our spice grinder (yes, we have a dedicated spice grinder, with a washable tub) and mixed it with finely chopped rosemary.  With a little salt and pepper, it became a rub for the steak. And a tasty, tasty rub it was.  Then, the steaks were pan fried.  We like our meat on the rare side so I did 6 - 8 minutes per side plus some time for resting afterwards.
The steak was a hit and luckily there were leftovers, so Kid 1 and I both had a pretty fancy lunch the next day at school and work!
I'm willing to bet that the rub would work well with a less expensive, marbled cut of steak. As I have enough dried porcini mushrooms to repeat this, I just might try it out.  Or if you have any good suggestions to use porcini mushrooms, leave them in the comments!