pan fried shell steak with boston baked beans and roasted sweet-potato fries

New York and Boston. They may be rivals when it comes to the World Series, but these two cities teamed up to create one harmonious dinner last night. 

This is a Pan Fried Shell Steak with Boston Baked Beans and Roasted Sweet-Potato Fries. Now, all this time I read the title of 'Shell Steak' and wondered where I'd ever find one of these types of steak. Upon looking into it a bit more I was pleasantly surprised to discover it's a New York Strip Steak. I'm 31 and have never had a NY Strip! That is far too long to have gone without and I doubt I'll let another living year go by without eating one. Country Corner had them on sale for $7/lb, which is a super great deal considering their quality. I picked up two steaks, which looked of good size behind the counter, but once home we realized this was enough meat to feed 6 people! Ah well, these will last us at least two meals, so we're more than happy.

I think if your pan frying steak, there is only one way to prep it and that's in a well seasoned cast-iron skillet. This is our largest one and the steaks barely fit! And what a beautiful medium rare with a delicious dark charred exterior we got off these.

So, let's see, we have a trifecta of saturated fat in this meal with bacon in the baked beans and steaks seared in butter! All we needed to top this one off was a bearnaise sauce and one of us might have had to been rushed to the Emergency with a coronary. But let's look on the bright side here. This is a meal with very basic prep with most ingredients already in the fridge and pantry. And the steak is the only real investment you have to make for a dinner I'd pay 10 times the price for at a steakhouse. It goes without saying that we absolutely LOVED this meal! It now looks like I won't have to travel to the US for Bush's baked beans now that I've discovered this recipe. Homemade is always better!

And Owen had some too. He ate several sweet potato fries and a bowl full of baked beans sans bacon with processed (and well cooked) NY strip.  Damn Owen, it's no fair he's eaten Rib Eye and NY Strip and he's not even one!