When you think “great steak” do you think Walmart”?
Yeah. I didn’t either. But Walmart asked me to try their Premium Beef and create a Labor Day BBQ-so I figured what the heck.
You see, Walmart knew that folks were not impressed with their steak selection, and they decided to make a change. They took USDA certified choice steaks and designated them as “Premium”. Not just any steak either-only 1 in 5 is considered good enough to be premium. And to make sure that YOU are confident that they are premium they’ve given a 100% Money Back Satisfaction Gaurante. To quote from the premium steak section of the website:
If you’re not completely satisfied with our steak, just bring back your receipt for a complete refund. No questioned asked-and no need to bring back the product.
To make it easier to find their Premium Steak, it’s packaged on a black tray, and it has the special “Premium Beef~USDA Choice” sticker prominently displayed.
Since we were featuring steak on the menu, I decided to go for something a little classier, more “grown up” for this BBQ. Typically Labor Day BBQ’s for us have been a toss some brats and burgers on the grill and scarf it down with some chips and dip at a friends house kind of event. But this year we actually aren’t attending a big BBQ–it’s going to be a smaller family affair-so classy works!
Since I really enjoy steak and don’t often splurge on a good one like these NY Strips, I didn’t want to mask the flavor with a lot of marinade or sauce. I wanted to taste STEAK. I did a bit of browsing on the internet and found a ton of mentions of finishing a nicely grilled steak with blue cheese butter.
That’s when it hit me. One of my favorite ways to eat a prime piece of beef is to wrap it in bacon, top it with a blue cheese spread and broil it. What if I created a bacon blue cheese butter to top my steak?
I started off by having hubs grill the steaks. They really were beautiful–lovely color, a nice thick cut and tasty marbling running throughout. We sprinkled on a bit of homemade seasoned salt, cracked on a bit of fresh pepper and grilled them.
Meanwhile on the grill side burner I used my cast iron skillet to fry a couple of slices of bacon. For the bacon blue cheese butter I mixed equal portions of softened butter, crumbled bacon and blue cheese. Of course you could make this ahead of time–you could even make a large batch and freeze it in a wax paper roll like I did my easy brunch fruit butters–then you’d have it ready not only for your next steak, but also to jazz up some plain vegetables or other dishes.
When the steaks were almost done we spread some of the bacon blue cheese butter on to melt in. Mmmm.
Gorgeously grilled, medium rare with that glorious bacon blue cheese butter on top. These steaks really did deserve the “Premium” title. Walmart-I’m sold!
For sides I not only boiled up some salt potatoes, I also sauteed some beans in a bit of the bacon drippings.
Since this was an especially festive meal I wanted to have something extra special to drink. I took the opportunity to try my hand at a non-alcoholic layered drink:
Isn’t that fun? I went with red and blue in honor of labor day.
Layered drinks look so complicated-but actually they are pretty easy. The basic theory here is that different amounts of sugar in solution weigh different amounts–so they will stay in layers if you carefully pour them with the highest sugar content on the bottom and work your way up to the lower sugar contents.
The easiest way to figure this out is to find the grams of sugar per serving on your nutritional label. Don’t forget to look at the serving size, not just the grams of sugar. The safest thing is to do a bit of math so that you get the grams of sugar per fluid oz. For my drink I used red Great Value Fruit Punch and dark blue Fierce Grape Gatoraide.
The fruit punch had 20 grams of sugar in an 8 oz serving, or 2.5 grams of sugar per oz. The Gatoraide had 21 grams of sugar for 12 oz, or 1.75 grams of sugar per oz. I simply filled the glass with ice and poured in a bottom layer of red fruit punch. Next I carefully and gently poured the blue Gatoraide in. I did my best to pour it onto the ice cubes-that helps slow down and spread out the liquid so that it doesn’t mix with the red as much (although you will get a bit of blending in the center. I think that the taller the glass and the more ice you use the more definite the layers are.
My kids thought that these layered drinks were the coolest thing ever. They are still talking about them and want me to make them the next either of them has a friend over. Sort of a “look at the cool drink my mom can make” thing.
Labor Day for our family is a day to relax and enjoy the company of the ones we care about. It’s the last big fun weekend before school starts and it deserves to be celebrated–and this meal is definitely a celebratory meal! The steaks were wonderful, the butter amazing and the drinks colorful and fun. What more could you ask for?
For more great recipes and grilling tips check out the Walmart.com Steaks webpage.
****This is a sponsored post****
Disclosure: This is a sponsored opportunity I am participating in with the Walmart Moms. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.
pour the next layer of drink over the back of a spoon, that should help, too.
yeah-i was being too lazy to go inside and get a spoon-but I bet that would help a lot!
That steak looks amazing! How can you go wrong with bacon, bleu cheese, and butter?
Yummy Yummy – “Daddy Approved Stamp” EARNED!