Your Good Old Midwestern Steak Dinner

Matt and I flew back to (heavenly) South Dakota a couple weekends ago to do some wedding planning (!), and while there, enjoyed some fantastic steaks out on the town.  I don't typically order steak when dining out in Chicago -- a Nebraskan at heart, I can't handle paying $40 for a cut of beef -- so it had been a while, and these were well worth the wait.  The restaurant sources from local cattle ranches, and they were served just right: a piece of fresh, perfectly cooked meat on a plate.  No fancy sauces or glazes muddying the dish.
Sorry, vegetarians, but there is just nothing quite so satisfying as slicing into a rare filet, the flesh buttery soft and rich.

In any case, I was inspired from that experience to purchase some organic ribeyes to cook at home.  We did them really simply, just frying in a little butter for a few minutes on each side, then letting them rest in the pan, covered with foil to seal the heat in.

They came out exactly to my taste ... which is to say, practically bleeding:

And what's a steak without potatoes?  We oven roasted these guys with a little olive oil, salt, and garlic, and finished everything off with mounds of steamed broccoli with shredded sharp cheddar.

Okay, so in the interests of perfect honesty, I have to say that by the time we'd gotten everything to the table and photographed it, the steak was a little tough and the broccoli a little cold, but these are the hazards of food-blogging, I guess.  And it was all still pretty dang delicious.

Besides, this is just one more example of how nothing compares to South Dakota.