- [Announcer] Sara's Weeknight Meals is made possible by USA Rice and by - [Chef] Cooking is the first kind of love you know.

It was starting when I was a child with my grandmother doing fresh pasta.

And now I transmit it to all the guests.

It's something made specially for them.

- [Announcer] Oceania Cruises, proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals.

(majestic music playing) ♪ Inside out, gotta figure it out ♪ ♪ I'm feeling good ♪ And it feels good to feel good ♪ - [Announcer] Sunsweet Amazin' Prunes and prune juice.

(upbeat music playing) - [Sara] When it's steaming outside, you want your food chilled or grilled, or both.

You've come to the right place.

For starters, my chilled southwestern gazpacho with tomatoes, cucumber and all those other yummy things.

Which is a perfect cold soup for a weeknight and you don't have to turn it on the stove.

(pan sizzling) Yeah, that's the noise you wanna hear.

If you like to sizzle with a steak, this salad is just about perfect.

Summery tomatoes, mushrooms, creamy béarnaise sauce and a nice rare cut of meat.

Yum.

Wow.

Doesn't that look delicious?

To really cool you down, I have two words, watermelon screwdriver.

This one's got a surprise.

As it melts, the color changes, the flavors change.

It just gets more and more interesting.

You'll be very happy.

Chill out today with Sara's Weeknight Meals.

(upbeat music playing) You know, at the height of summer you really wanna take advantage of the vegetable stars.

I am talking about tomatoes and corn.

My all time favorites because they're at the height of their freshness.

So I'm gonna take those two guys today and combine them with some other fresh ingredients into my southwestern inspired gazpacho.

Which is a perfect cold soup for a weeknight and you don't have to turn on the stove.

Let's start with the tomato.

So I'm adding one beef steak tomato that I've coarsely chopped to a bowl with another two cups of chopped tomatoes, three cups of coarsely chopped English cucumber that I peeled.

And I'm gonna add two teaspoons of kosher salt, which will pull out excess liquid from both of them, the cucumber and the tomato, and really concentrate the flavor.

So let me just quick stir that up.

So we're just gonna let this sit for about 20 minutes.

You're gonna be astonished at how much liquid comes out.

Let me talk about the garnish.

I have here, one cup of cherry tomatoes and one cup of diced English cucumber.

They're gonna get seasoned too.

And to each one of these bowls I'm gonna add a half a teaspoon of kosher salt.

Again, we're trying to get out the excess liquid.

There we go.

Now onto some avocado.

And here I have one cup of coarsely chopped avocado to go into the soup.

And one cup of finally diced avocado to go on top for the color.

And I put a wet paper towel on to keep them from oxidizing.

We all know that air is bad for avocados but I'm also gonna add some lime juice.

A teaspoon of lime juice to each one.

And this will help further to keep them from oxidizing.

I'm gonna reserve the remaining two tablespoons of fresh lime juice to add to the soup at the end.

The two teaspoons go right onto my avocado.

And by the way, avocados taste great regardless of what color they are.

I wish people would stop thinking "So awful" if they just turned slightly.

I'm gonna put the paper towels back on.

Okay, anytime you're trying to keep a vegetable moist, put a wet paper towel on top.

Okay, onto the poblano.

I've got one that I've roasted and one that I've roasted and peeled.

And you can either char it on top of the burner on a gas stove, or you can do it under a broiler.

Then put it in a bowl with plastic wrap on top, which will help the it to steam and makes it much easier to get the skin off.

So now I'm gonna take out the seeds and chop this up.

If you don't have a poblano though, you can use a half a cup of canned green chilies.

Add one clove of garlic.

And for this, all we need to do is peel it, smash it, and throw it in.

You can add more if you want.

And now I'm gonna add some cilantro.

We need about a quarter cup roughly chopped.

If you hate cilantro, basil's fine.

And that's gonna go in with the poblano and avocado.

Okay, now it's time to blend the soup.

We're gonna use an actual blender because it will give you the the creamy, pureed texture you're looking for.

So we're gonna put some of this in here and some of our other mixture in here which is the avocado, the poblano, the cilantro.

And then we're gonna puree this up.

We'll have to do a few batches.

(blender whirring) (peaceful music playing) Look at that beautiful texture.

We're gonna wait and taste it for salt later because remember, we salted many parts of it and we don't want this to be a horribly salty soup.

(peaceful music playing) (blender whirring) Okay, so that's all the soup.

And I know it's a sort of strange color but by the time we garnish it, it's going to look gorgeous.

Okay, so we have a few things to do to finish it.

One is to add some fresh lime juice.

Remember we squeezed it before.

I'm gonna add two tablespoons.

Two tablespoons of grapeseed oil.

Now grapeseed oil doesn't have any flavor but fat is a conductor of flavor.

So anytime you add fat to a recipe, it's just gonna taste better.

Ooh, this is wonderfully thick.

Okay, now all of the garnish is gonna go in, three quarters of the quartered tomatoes.

I'm gonna add all the liquid but I'm gonna save a little bit to put on top of each portion.

Same with the cucumber.

Holding back a quarter.

Now onto the avocado.

Alrighty, and I'm gonna keep it covered.

Now I'm gonna get the corn together here.

I have favorite ways of cutting corn off the cob.

My current favorite is you break the cob in half and then you cut it down straight way.

And the corn doesn't go all over.

When corn's at the peak of its rightness, you could just throw it in raw.

It's really delicious.

But if you don't wanna eat raw corn, if it's not quite as fresh as you'd like it to be, you might wanna blanch it for a few minutes before throwing it in.

And I'm gonna save a little bit of the corn for the garnish.

There we go.

Oh, this is gonna be so good.

So now I'm gonna show you a really great way to quick chill a soup, if you don't have time to leave it in the fridge overnight.

I've got a bowl of ice here and I'm gonna put the soup in it's bowl inside that.

And then I'm gonna pour in some water.

When you chill up something in ice and water as opposed to just in ice or just in the fridge, it will chill 25 times faster.

Time for the tortillas.

For eight corn tortillas, you need two tablespoons of oil, two teaspoons of chili powder and a half to a teaspoon of salt.

And you're just gonna brush them with this mixture and then cut them into strips.

And I bake them at 400 degrees for about eight minutes or until they change color and get crispy.

So let me go get the ones that I just baked.

Okay, let's see how we're doing with our cold, cold soup.

You can use a glass because this is not a hot soup.

Oh, I wish you could smell it.

It really does have such a great aroma.

Now all of our garnishes are what makes it extra specially lovely looking.

So our cucumber, our tomato, the avocado.

Oh, here we go.

And of course, some corn.

See how that makes it look that much more elegant?

And then you can either crumble the tortilla strips on top or you can just dip them in on the side.

(peaceful music playing) (Sara moans delightfully) So there you have it, summer in a bowl.

My chilled southwestern gazpacho with tomatoes, cucumber and all those other yummy things.

Yum.

(bright music playing) You know, regardless of where you are, on a very hot day all you want is a really cool drink and I have a terrific one for you.

It's a watermelon screwdriver.

And it's so simple to make and it's a lot of fun.

And it takes me to another theme that I'm gonna talk about in just a minute.

But I got one of these baby watermelons and watermelons are so wonderful.

I used to think they were worthless in terms of nutrition but as it turns out, they have a lot of nutrition.

But the reason we love them is they're mostly water and they're so refreshing.

What I need to make my watermelon ice cubes, which is the secret to my watermelon screwdrivers, I need about a pound of watermelon.

Just cut it.

Now, the good thing about these little guys is the seeds that they have are not all that prominent.

So I'm not gonna worry about them too much, I'm just gonna throw them in the blender.

But if you have a regular big watermelon with those big black seeds, you are absolutely gonna wanna remove the seeds before you go and puree it.

Now there's nothing that's going into this blender except the watermelon.

Now why wouldn't you just freeze watermelon chunks and use them as your cubes?

Seems a lot easier right?

When you do that, they're icy.

By actually pureeing them in the blender here, we are making them much softer.

And the pleasure of having an ice cube like this in your drink is that the flavor of your drink changes from the first sip to the last sip as it melts.

So here we go.

(blender whirring) Now this is a sort of pale watermelon, so we're gonna have sort of light pink cubes.

The darker ones will give you more color.

I'm using these flexible ice cube trays because they're so easy to pop the cubes out of.

And we're just gonna fill these up.

And then you know the routine, put them in the freezer.

I would recommend putting plastic wrap on top because they can pick up off flavors.

You don't want your watermelon, you know, smelling or tasting like anything else except watermelon.

And then you're ready to go.

Let me show you my drink.

(peaceful music playing) So here we are with some fresh orange juice and to this we are gonna add three quarters of a cup of vodka.

Any brand will do.

Certainly this is a wonderful drink without the vodka, you don't have to add the vodka.

And so into our chilled orange juice.

Such a complicated drink, isn't it?

Now here are my watermelon cubes.

I'm just gonna fill it up with the cubes.

And it's so funny how the color changes.

You just have to encourage whoever's drinking this to drink it slowly, which is not a bad idea on a hot day with an alcoholic drink anyway.

Because as it melts, the color changes, the flavors change, it just gets more and more interesting.

So there is our drink and you can garnish it with some beautiful mint.

Always a nice contrast.

You could have a little squeeze of lime if you want because watermelon is so sweet.

Isn't that wonderful?

But I wanna talk about ice cubes in general, in the summertime.

You can take any fruit and puree it.

So here we have some strawberry cubes, we have some honeydew cubes.

You could do blueberries, you could add these to lemonade.

You could add them to ice tea, you could add them to seltzer.

That'd be fantastic.

Here's another thought.

When you make tea, ice tea, just regular tea to make into ice tea, you have extra, turn it into cubes.

So there you have it, my watermelon screwdriver.

I hope you take this idea and run with it on the next very hot day, you'll be very happy.

(upbeat music playing) There are three simple ways to augment the deliciousness of my steak, mushroom and tomato salad.

One: salt the steak.

Two: pre pre-salt the tomatoes.

Three: add the resting juices from the steak to the béarnaise sauce mayonnaise.

Okay, so let's get started.

I am showing you here three steaks.

I have the tri tip, this is the flat iron.

And this third one will surprise you.

This is boneless short rib.

They're very tasty, very beefy, slightly tougher but it doesn't matter because if you cook them rare and slice them thin, they're gorgeous steaks.

Okay, so I'm gonna keep this one here my tri tip and move these guys back.

Now the first thing I'm gonna do, let me just say, that if there's one ingredient that's more important than any other ingredient that you cook with, it's salt.

I'm gonna salt this steak on all sides, then let it sit for about an hour.

But even four hours would be better if you had the time.

I'm gonna leave it one hour at room temperature.

If it was four hours, I'd put it in the fridge.

I'm using a cast iron skillet.

The ones the cowboys used to use.

It's sort of fun, it gets very hot.

You can get a wonderful sear on the meat.

Now since it's been sitting here salted, it gets wet.

So I wanna pat it dry because you won't get a sear on a steak that's wet.

And we want that wonderful crusty outside and that juicy rare inside.

So we need some pepper as well.

I love pepper on my steak.

All right, I'm cooking it in just some vegetable oil.

I like grapeseed.

I actually already tested it.

One way I tested is putting a little drop of water in there.

Let's see.

(pan sizzling) Yeah, that's the noise you wanna hear.

Now this is a relatively thick steak.

Gonna be anywhere from five to seven minutes a side.

So the next thing I'm gonna do is salt my tomatoes.

I'm gonna show you a little trick about slicing tomatoes that I learned from my cousin's wife.

And she learned it from Rachael Ray and Rachael Ray learned it from an intern.

But I'm gonna say thank you Heather, for teaching me this.

That's my cousin's wife.

You put your tomatoes in there between two lids, two plates, whatever.

Get down at their level and just cut through them with a serrated knife.

Now what does salt do to vegetables?

It tamps down bitterness.

So you taste the sweet, you taste the sour, you taste the tomato.

And let them sit for about 15, 20 minutes.

There's our salted tomatoes.

And now I'm gonna go onto mushrooms.

Now we're having mushrooms raw.

And the only time you really wanna eat a mushroom raw is when it's very firm.

(upbeat music playing) (knife chopping) So that was about eight ounces of mushrooms.

Okay, these are just gonna be so tasty.

I'm gonna check my steak and see if it's ready to be turned and move on to the cucumber.

All right, let's see how we're doing.

Let me, watch me here and see how that moves.

Now if it wasn't ready to be turned, it wouldn't be able to be moved like that.

Okay, now onto the cucumber.

I'm gonna cut them in half, it's a little easier to slice them when they're cut in half.

(upbeat music playing) (pan sizzling) (knife chopping) Okay, that looks like about a cup and a half.

So we've got our tomatoes, we've got our cucumbers.

I'm gonna start my sauce.

My sauce is a take on Béarnaise sauce.

It's a wonderful classic French sauce.

This is a Béarnaise mayonnaise.

So I'm making the reduction.

This is the flavoring.

A couple tablespoons of minced shallot.

We've got a quarter cup of white wine vinegar.

It can be regular white wine vinegar, it could be champagne vinegar.

And a quarter cup of white wine, dry white wine, equal parts.

And then we're gonna add some dry tarragon.

And I feel like it really adds intense tarragon taste.

So that's about a tablespoon and a half.

And then key to this, there's my wine, is salt.

I like to add the salt in the beginning and reduce this mixture slowly.

I feel that it gets more of the flavor out of everything.

Okay, so that's gonna reduce and I'm gonna come on down and make homemade mayonnaise.

So what goes into a mayonnaise is basically egg yolks and oil with some other flavorings in there.

So I'm gonna put two yolks in here.

The best way to separate an egg is with your hands because there's no sharp edges on there.

(upbeat music playing) And crack an egg on a flat surface so you don't break the yolk.

(upbeat music playing) Okay, so we're gonna want a teaspoon of mustard.

This helps for the emulsification, meaning for the oil to stay trapped in there.

And then we want just a pinch of cayenne.

There's a pinch.

Here's a quarter teaspoon of salt.

Now I'm using kosher salt.

Actually a better choice for this might be iodized salt, because it's finer grains.

Occasionally it's a good idea to use iodized salt which is table salt has usually iodine added to it because we do need iodine in our diet.

So I'm gonna need a tablespoon and a teaspoon of this.

I'm just gonna go in here first.

So this is a lemony mayonnaise not strongly, but nicely lemony.

Okay, about a tablespoon.

A tablespoon and a teaspoon.

There we go.

Let me get rid of the excess, because the next thing we're gonna add is our oil.

And we need a cup of flavorless oil, like vegetable oil, like safflower sunflower, or my favorite, which is grapeseed oil.

So let me just turn my steak here on the other side to sear it.

Ooh, this is looking very good.

Okay, so here's what you do.

Turn on your machine.

You put the oil in here and it will slowly drip down through the hole at the pace that you want it to.

See how that's thickening up nicely.

Okay.

What I'm gonna do is take out about a half a cup.

So let's say this is about a half a cup.

Okay, so I'm gonna take the temperature of the steak.

This is such a thick steak I can go through down through the top.

We're looking for about 120.

Yeah, that's looking good.

Okay, so I'm gonna get it out because it needs to rest for about 10 minutes.

So we cover it loosely.

Here we go.

I've got my reduction, I've got my mayonnaise, I've got my resting steak.

I am gonna go get the fresh tarragon to finish my sauce.

I'll be right back.

(upbeat music playing) Okay, so I've patted my tomatoes dry here.

So everything is gonna get combined now.

My steak is rested for 10 minutes.

Resting is so key because if I slice that steak right away, all the juices would come streaming out and I would have a dry steak.

So all our vegetables go in here.

First of all, I'm gonna add my reduction, which I've let cool.

This is my béarnaise reduction.

I'm gonna add that to my mayonnaise along with my meat juices.

And there's gonna be more meat juices coming out when I carve it.

So I'm gonna wait for that.

And I might add a little bit of water because this is a very stiff mayonnaise.

And some fresh tarragon, which I just picked.

Now it's funny, people who hate tarragon somehow love béarnaise.

I don't know, like my children, they won't eat it anywhere else, but they love it in béarnaise.

Okay, so there is our dressing.

Now it's important to salt the salad as well as we already salted the tomatoes.

But when you toss a salad, don't just make sure the dressing is well seasoned.

Make sure the salad is too.

So I'm gonna put a little bit of this on here and I'm gonna toss it with my hands, which is the best way to go.

Because you can be very gentle.

Just very lightly dressed because we're gonna drizzle some more of that on top afterwards.

All right, let me quick wash my hands and get the lettuce all set up.

Okay, dokey.

So...

This is butter lettuce, which is wonderful, butter or Boston.

And what's so great about it, we've washed it, sort of left it whole, is that it looks like a flower.

So we're gonna sort of nestle everything in there like a flower.

Make a base and our steak is gonna go on top.

So let's put some of this in there.

You have to cook with your hands and you know when you're home, it doesn't matter.

It's not like you're in a restaurant, you know?

Make sure, of course that your hands are clean.

Now we're waiting for our steak, here it goes.

I wanna show you something very important about this steak because as I said, these are tough steaks.

There's a grain and it's very easy to find the grain.

You can see it, it's ridges.

If I cut the steak like this with the grain, it would be inedibly chewy.

But cutting across the grain is gonna make it very tender.

I cooked it rare, so I hope you like it rare.

So here we go.

See the grain is going just like this.

So I'm gonna cut right across it.

We've got such a nice crust.

Ah, there we go.

Okay.

Wow, doesn't that look delicious?

Now you see how thin I'm cutting it?

That is a key part of eating these steaks.

One more piece, I'm gonna lay it out and drizzle a little more sauce on top.

So this is a little restauranty, but hey why not?

One more slice for that side.

This is a pound steak.

It should feed four people.

Of course my husband would eat the whole thing.

All right, here we go.

A little more sauce on the meat.

I'll put a little fresh tarragon on top and we'll be good to go.

(upbeat music playing) So there we have it, a hearty steak for a weeknight.

And this would be perfect in the summertime when tomatoes are really ripe and wonderful or really welcome for a lighter meal on a winter night.

Why not?

(upbeat music playing) For recipes, videos and more, go to our website, saramoulton.com.

Sara's Weeknight Meals is made possible by USA Rise, Sunsweet and by - [Chef] Cooking is the first kind of love you know.

It was starting when I was a child with my grandmother doing fresh pasta.

And now I transmit it to all the guests.

It's something made especially for them.

- [Announcer] Oceana Cruises, proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals.