Roasted Red Pepper Quinoa with Ribeye and Roasted Brussels Sprouts

By TaratheFoodie

Ingredients

• Brussels sprouts (you choose how many)
• Bottle of California Olive Ranch Arbosana extra virgin olive oil (you'll need it several times in this recipe, so have a bottle handy)
• sea salt
• fresh ground pepper
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 lemon, the juice and the zest
• 16 oz. (or larger) ribeye steak, at least an inch thick
• 1 cup Bob's Red Mill Organic Quinoa Grain
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup diced onion
• 1 cup diced roasted red pepper
• 3 tablespoons Goya sofrito
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

Details

Adapted from tarathefoodie.blogspot.com

Preparation

Step 1

Start by preparing your Brussels sprouts. Cut off the little brown ends, cut each sprout in half (unless they're super tiny), put them all in a glass baking dish. Hit them with a good extra virgin olive oil and season them with sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper. Zest up a lemon and add the lemon zest and squirt some lemon juice all over the sprouts. Toss to coat them all with the goodness, then pop them in a 350 degree oven until they begin to brown a bit.

Next, get your quinoa going. Just how you prepare any rice, you put in 1 part quinoa to 2 parts liquid (I always use chicken stock). Stir and bring the mixture to a boil. Then lower the heat to low and cover the pot allowing the quinoa to soak up all of the liquid. After the liquid has been absorbed (about 20 minutes or so), fluff up the quinoa with a fork and it's ready to go.

While you're quinoa is soaking in its hot tub, get your steak ready. On both sides, slather on some extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and 2 cloves of the fresh minced garlic. Massage it all into the steak, then let the steak hang out on a plate so that it gets to room temperature and starts to soak up all of that garlicy, olive oil goodness. Remember, you never want to put a cold piece of meat onto a grill... unless you really want it to suck.

Next, make the base for your quinoa side dish. Saute some onions in a couple tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. After a few minutes, add the remaining 2 cloves of the minced garlic and saute until the garlic is fragrant - only about 30 seconds and make sure your heat is med-low so you don't burn the garlic.

Next add a cup of diced up roasted red peppers (I just used canned - really no need to do it yourself unless you're just showing off), season with salt and pepper, and throw in 3 tablespoons of Goya sofrito (again, no need to make this yourself because this stuff is delicious and adds some flare to things like rice and of course quinoa). Stir the mixture up and cook for a few minutes.

Ok, so now's the time to check on your quinoa. Take the lid off and when it looks like this... it's done. Fluff it up with a fork and it's ready to add to your roasted red pepper/onion/garlic mixture.

Just add all of the quinoa to the pan and stir. Then hit it with some grated Parmesan or Romano cheese - whichever your prefer or have on hand.

Ok, so by now, you're all done with your Brussels Sprouts and your quinoa side dish. Just let them hang out on your stove and we'll heat them back up when we're ready to serve dinner.

Now it's time to grill the steak. Since it was cold out, I decided to use my cast iron griddle (that I'm completely in love with and use constantly). Turn both burners on HIGH and let it heat up until you can see it start to smoke. It will seem like it's too hot and you'll feel like you're burning the hell out of your steak. If you feel this way, YOU'RE DOING IT RIGHT.

When the griddle is plenty hot, and since your steak is already slathered with olive oil, just place the steak right on the griddle. Scrape the rest of the goodness left on the plate onto the top of the steak. Don't waste any of that liquid gold.

Now for this steak's thickness, it ended up taking about 6 minutes per side to achieve a nice crust on the outside and a medium-rare doneness on the inside. If you want it more done than that (I don't know why you would exactly... but if you MUST), just leave it on a bit longer on each side. Press down on the steak with your finger and you can pretty much determine how done it is on the inside by how much give it has when you press down on it. Also remember, it will continue to cook a bit more when you take it off the griddle, so don't leave it on too long and ruin it. You can always put a steak back on the griddle, but you can't uncook it once you've screwed it up. Kay?

Once the steak is done, take it off the griddle and put it on your cutting board to rest. Let it rest for a good 10 minutes. Don't worry, it will stay hot, or at least warm. Just leave it alone. While the steak is resting, pop your quinoa and Brussels sprouts into the oven (350 degrees is fine) to heat back up.

After the steak has rested, cut it against the grain on the bias like so.... (in Emeril voice: ahhhh yeah babe). Cut off any extra fat at this point - it has done its job.

Take your side dishes out of the oven and plate everything up.

Enjoy!