Experimentation
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
I daydream about food. Sometimes what I dream about works, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not quite sure about this one yet. It was tasty, but it didn’t turn out how I had envisioned. Don’t you just hate that?
The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.
I chose to make a cashew butter into a spicy sauce and drizzle it on steak tacos. But, my butter wouldn’t grind down as thin as I would like, and the motor on my food processor was starting to smell a little like exploding, so I had to make do with thick cashew paste. In a saucepan I sauteed some chopped jalapeno, then added about 1/2 cup of the paste and some oil to thin it out. Then I mixed in a splash of soy sauce, and a dollop of Greek yogurt to even out the flavors.
Once it was all mixed I set it aside and sauteed up some onions and summer squash, then pan-grilled a grass-fed sirloin steak from our freezer stash. Have I mentioned we got part of a cow months ago? Well, we did. I wish it had come with more sirloin and fewer T-bones, because the sirloin is so versatile.
We piled the sliced steak, vegetables, cheese, and sauce into tortillas and stuffed our faces. This one might not be going into the recipe book, but sometimes, experimentation pays off.
WOW cashew nut butter with steak that does sound good! I love your photograph it looks so professional. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.
That looks lovely Megan!! What a great light meal for hot summer nights!
What a great idea, to pair the cashew butter with steak and go with tacos. The cashew butter is pretty thick, but it sounds like your sauce was just perfect for the tacos. Great job on the challenge!
Great job and cashew butter nut sounds absolutely delicious with steak. Yummy!
It sounds great! Wonderful concept too!!
I can understand why you’d be day-dreaming about this combo. It sounds like it would be perfectly delicious. I love the little extra kick from the jalapeno… and I’m thinking your concept would make an excellent sauce for chicken pitas.
I love the idea of this. It seems like a good pairing that would please just about everyone. Daring Bakers is such a great group, I’m sorry I dropped out. They do have the ability to get you daydreaming about food!
On your cashew butter, I’m not sure now you did yours, but it may help to boil your cashews to soften them prior to grinding them. I do that with pistachios and get fabulous results.
This looks and sounds like a great way to use the cashew butter. I suggest possibly adding oil to your nut butters while grinding. That seemed to help me with my almond butter 🙂
I think it’s a home run and I bet the texture was just fine. GREG
Wow… cashew sauce for tacos… I might have to play around with that for a vegetarian version! And see if there isn’t some creative way of thinning things out… Beautiful job, and amazing photo!!
You might not be thrilled with it, but we think you should be and we’re going to ‘borrow’ this idea, probably in the next week or so for a quick post work-out dinner.
Thanks for daydreaming!
Stay JOLLY!
D&S