Dinner is Salvaged By An Eight Hour Soak in the Crock Pot

On Wednesday I came home from work unbelievably hungry. I planned to make steak quesadillas for dinner that night and I spent the better half of the afternoon dreaming about the smells and tastes of that scrumptious meal. I thought I planned everything well in advance and I was sure dinner would turn out perfectly as soon as I got home. I had all of the ingredients on hand and the steak was defrosting slowly in the fridge.

Of course, traffic was heavier than expected so I arrived home about an hour later than I originally intended. Luckily my husband was on hand as soon as I stepped in the door, so we immediately got to work slicing onions and peppers and mincing a handful of garlic.

I pulled out the recipe and began to leaf through the list of ingredients when I noticed a detail I clearly missed earlier. It seems I was supposed to marinate the steak for at least four hours before cooking. Unfortunately, I was hungry, it was late and I made an executive decision to forgo the marination process. I dumped the ingredients into the pan and began to heat things. up.

As soon as the steak began to cook it became completely inedible. It was thick and tough and overall rather disgusting and unappetizing. There was simply no way my husband and I could eat the meal I originally planned.

It was nearing 9 o’clock, I was discouraged, and we were both starving. We ran downstairs and searched the pantry for something to prepare. In the blink of an eye we decided upon a very relaxed version of spaghetti. I boiled a pot of water and ten minutes later we ate noodles with store bought, about to expire marinara, right out of the jar.

After dinner my husband suggested throwing out the awful, stinky steak, but I had no intention of dumping good money and good meat down the drain. I was convinced that I could salvage it. I poured two cups of beef stock over the steak and placed it in the fridge to rest overnight. On Thursday morning I dumped the steak into a crock pot, added another two or three cups of stock and left it on low for roughly eight hours.

I checked on the progress every once in a while and by mid-day I noticed the meat began to soften. Sure enough by dinner time it was perfectly moist and tender. We heated up some tortillas, placed the drained meat mixture on top and slathered with cheese. It was absolutely delicious!

I had no idea that tough, cooked meat could be salvaged by a simple eight hour soak in the crock pot. Hopefully I’ll remember to marinade the meat next time, but for this go around I’m happy to report that we didn’t waste a thing and dinner turned out scrumptious.