Mock Steak Recipe

I am not a great cook, but I manage.  A few years ago I tried to learn the different sides of beef and where they were located on the cow, but I didn't really retain any of that information.  Since my cholesterol levels are iffy, I try to only eat beef once a week.  I don't consciously try to do this like I should, but my beef recipes are not as numerous as the poultry recipes in my file.  Plus, I'm not really a chef when it comes to cooking beef except for crumbling and frying ground beef. If I want a steak, I go for the filet mignon and my husband prepares that on the grill. I don't do fire.

Each week I try to plan out a menu, and then I shop accordingly.  With my mother in the hospital this past week, I ended up at the grocery without a plan or a list, and I wandered the store trying to come up with ideas. I saw these small pieces of meat, cut, packaged, and on sale.  They were very red and just the right size for my family so I threw two packages into my cart, figuring that if I bought more then I could probably talk my friend Kelly into grilling them for me.  Then I proceeded to finish the meal by buying potatoes, fresh Florida corn, green beans, and garlic bread.  I was very excited that this meal was complete, but as I headed to the check-out I got a bit worried.  I read the name on the package again; mock tender steak.

Hmmmm....wasn't that a little misleading?  I whipped out my phone and looked it up and sure enough the first site that came up started with, "This steak obviously got it's name from an advertising executive since it isn't actually anything like tender."  I whipped back around and put the steak back, but as I searched for a replacement nothing looked as good as those little steaks so I put them back in my cart and went back to the Internet for a recipe.  All of the sites said to braise the steak (which I had to look up) so I bought them.

When the day came to cook them I looked up to see if there were any crockpot recipes and found one site where someone asked what she could do with these mock tender steaks her husband bought on BOGO.  Someone said to cook it in the crockpot with beef broth and onion soup, and since I do that with pot roast I decided to give it a try.

My Mock Tender Steak Recipe:

I used 6 little mock tender steaks (feeds four easily)

 1 can of beef broth

1 package of Lipton onion soup mix

Worcester Sauce to taste (I love this stuff so I pour it on)

Garlic powder

Mrs. Dash

2 tbs. flour

Sprinkle the steaks with the garlic powder and Mrs. Dash.  You can braise the steak in a frying pan on each side for about two minutes if you want, but it isn't necessary. Put the beef broth and onion soup mix into the crockpot and stir it up.  Place the steaks into the crockpot mixture and pour in the Worcester sauce on top of the steaks. Add potatoes and carrots if you want. Put the crockpot on low (or high depending on time) and walk away. Mine cooked on high in four hours. Low setting would probably be a couple of hours more.

An hour before I was ready to eat I snapped my green beans and added them into the crockpot.  When the beans were done I took the beans and steak out, added the flour into the broth and made gravy that I poured over the steak.

The steaks were delicious!  They fell apart on the fork and the flavors together made a tasty little steak that was so easy to make.  The green beans soaked in the broth mixture were delicious as well.  We decided that the meal with the baked potatoes were enough so next time no corn or bread.  We were all stuffed after the meal that we couldn't even eat dessert!

I thought that these little babies were worth blogging about and have now added them to my rotating recipes.  It might just take the place of my pot roast!  Enjoy!