Family Cheesesteaks

Family Cheesesteaks


This is the sort of meal you prepare when you've only got 20 minutes or so to cook and eat, or, you can extend it into a full lunch or evening meal including soup and dippy snacks.



Requirements:
Large frying pan or skillet (be careful; this -will- generate fat/grease)
Spatter guard
Metal spatula (you'll see why*)
Tin can or something to store meat grease in
Glass plate with paper towels


# of rolls equal to the number of sammiches you wanna make
Cheese, typically American (square), though provolone, swiss, cheddar, and velveeta or unspicy nacho cheese work well also.
At least one box of Steak-umms (minute steaks) though you can find a cheaper generic-brand usually in boxes of 7.

Onion (coarsely cubed**), green peppers(coarsely cubed), sweet or hot peppers(fresh, sliced), tomato (sliced) (for long plan)
Salt/pepper/mayo/ketchup


Quick Plan:
Heat the frying pan over medium heat to the point where water spatters. Add a little teensy bit of butter, margarine, olive oil or lard - not more than half a teaspoon - to lubricate the surface just a little.

Add your seperated steak pieces. You may only be able to get two or three in a typical 9-inch frying pan. When the top of the visible meat turns pink, flip it. You should see a gentle browning. Flip again in 2-3 minutes til both sides are evenly brown-gray. You do -not- want to burn them black.

Set the cooked meat on the plate to absorb the remaining grease. Place cheese in roll, add meat length-wise. Fold, eat, clean up.



Long plan:
If you prefer a more Philly-style steak with clumps of shredded meat instead of the two slices we just cooked, you can slice the steak longways into pinky-wide strips and cook it that way. Be careful that you cook the meat entirely. With this cooking method you need to make sure you continue flipping the meat.

As you cook the steaks in the pan, set up a second pan to 'sautee' the onion you cubed. Use a little margarine - maybe a tablespoon - and salt, pepper to taste. Cook the onions until they're somewhat translucent, but still firm and with a bit of a 'bite' to them. Taste testing is allowed. Later, when you make your sandwich, you can add sliced tomato or peppers. (My family prefers to re-heat pre-sauteed onions in the steak grease.)

Prepare soup, dig out chips, fresh vegetables (broccoli, baby carrots, celery with cream cheese or peanut butter).


*Plastic/rubber spatulas tend to gather clumps of meat or burnt carbon, and make it extremely difficult to flip the meat.

**Onion cubing: We will do the following. Peel the onion. Then cut off the root/stem end and set that on the cutting board. Cut in half along the same plane as the cutting board. Then, cut in half perpendicular to the board, then two times parallel so you have four sections of onion. Turn the onion 90 degrees and cut in pinky-width sections again. Add to pan.