My other mate Jess, yes amazing isn’t it? I have two mates both called Jess. I think it’s pretty amazing that I have two mates full stop! Anyway, my other mate Jess is a hippy. And by hippy I mean she likes to look after herself. She likes to damage herself too sometimes, but… now I’m straying from the point again dammit.

Jess is, or was a vegetarian. Until the doctor told her monkeys came down from the trees to eat meat so she better eat meat to or she could die.*

But she isn’t allowed to eat chicken. I guess the monkey’s didn’t eat chicken. And she can’t have dairy, eggs, potato or grains (except quinoa cos jesus invented that when he needed something to go with his loaves and fishes. Quinoa may not have been the best choice in my opinion but… not up to me… oh, and he invented monkeys, too)

So she is having a bit of trouble dealing with the whole ‘meat’ thing so I said I would help her out with a recipe. Ease her into it nice and slowly. Gentlemanly like… so I thought we could make something a little bit meaty, and a little bit hippy.

Introducing the STEAK OF BEEFINESS with a salad of delicate grains of quinoa, local sweet corn, tomato and jalepeno (for 2)

2x beefy steak. If it’s your first time I would suggest a 500g rump. No, seriously. Maybe a girly little fillet steak. The least beefy and most tender piece of meat on a cow. Also the most expensive. I never could understand why someone would want to pay heaps of money for a piece of meat that didn’t taste heaps meaty. Hmmm…

1 cup quinoa, a mix of red and white would look cool. Cooked according to packet instructions

1 ear of sweet corn, sliced from cob and tossed for 30sec in a hot pan

1 tomato, diced

½ red onion, fine dice

1 handful of chopped coriander and oregano and parsley

1 jalepeno chilli, fine dice

2 Tbls red wine vinegar

2 Tbls olive oil, plus extra to serve

• Heat a pan on a hot flame (or grill or open bbq would be good)
• Season your steak quite heavily with salt and pepper
• Now place seasoned side down into pan. It should sizzle. Leave it there for 2-3 minutes
• When your nose can smell the steak is starting to caramelise and get delicious, turn it over and cook for another 3 minutes for med-well ( if you got a small steak. 150g-ish)
• Turn flame off but leave steak in pan to rest for a few minutes while you get your salad together.
• Combine all other ingredients to make your salad, dress with vinegar and olive oil.
• Slice your steak on an angle across the grain (so it’s not so daunting as a whole piece of girly little steak) and lay onto a pretty plate. Put the salad somewhere on the same plate and drizzle (that damn word again) with extra olive oil.
• The hippy with blood lust shall be satiated….

*this may or may not be an actual true story