New Recipe Challenge, Day 3: Slow Cooker Cube Steak and Gravy

Greetings and salutations, lovely readers!

Tonight's recipe also comes to us via Pinterest, where it is named "Slow Cooker Melt In Your Mouth Cube Steak And Gravy."  They got the slow cooker, cube steak, and gravy part right; I'll leave it to you to decide if it is "melt in your mouth."

Let's get started; you only need four ingredients (plus water and oil):

• Cube steak
• 1 package of mushrooms.  The original recipe called for sliced mushroom; I had a crying baby to deal with, so I just cut mine in half.
• Flour
• 3 packets of Brown Gravy Mix

What to do: 

1.  Forget to take the cube steak out of the freezer the night before you make this.  Upon realizing your oversight in the morning, set package of cube steak in lukewarm water until the meat is thawed.  Yeah, that really happened.

2.  Season the now thawed cube steak well with salt and pepper.  Dredge cube steak through the floor, making sure both sides are well coated.

3.  After heating oil in a heavy skillet, brown meat on both sides.  You don't have to cook it all the way through, just get a good sear on it.

4.  Drain excess oil off the meat and pat dry with a paper towel, because the meat was icky greasy.

Greasy friend meat.

5.  Place meat and washed and sliced mushrooms in crockpot set to 'low' and add 2 cups of water.  

6.  Now, this is where the original recipe and I parted ways.  After several hours of cooking, all I could smell was the lingering odor of greasy fried beef.  That disturbed me, so I went ahead and sprinkled one of the packets of gravy into the crock pot.  Yeah, 'cause I'm crazy like that.

Really starting to have doubts about this and wondering if our budget will allow us to get a pizza tonight.

7.  Let this cook for approximately 8 hours on low.  After 8 hours, mix your remaining gravy packets with 1 cup of water and stir into your meat/mushroom concoction.  Turn crock pot up to 'high' and let cook for another 30 minutes.

8.  Again, this is where I changed the recipe a bit.  After stirring in the rest of the gravy mix, I gave everything a quick taste.  And I was NOT impressed.  So, I added in a few glugs of Worcestershire sauce.  You know, just to see what would happen.

I loves me some Neil deGrasse Tyson.

9.  Anyway, after 30 minutes, serve with mashed potatoes or rice or whatever.

Yeah, we eat a lot of broccoli in this house.  

The verdict:  Meh.  It didn't suck.  It also wasn't particularly fabulous.  The meat was very bland and certainly did not "melt in my mouth".  The gravy was still a bit runny, too, and the whole thing just seemed to be lacking.... something.  Anyway, I can think of much better uses for cube steak than this and will not be making it again.

Eleanor's take:  She ate her broccoli and mashed potatoes.  She tried a mushroom and spit it out.  Then she practiced cutting up the meat with a butter knife.

Cost breakdown:

• Cube steak - $5.02 
• Mushrooms - $3.68
• Brown Gravy packets - $1.50

Total (not including side dishes):  $10.02, so for the 2 of us who ate it, it comes out to $5.10 each.  A little pricey for something that was not all that great.  

Try this if you want, but I wasn't impressed.

Tune in tomorrow for what will hopefully be a better meal:  Honey Mustard Glazed Chicken.

Have a great night!