Steak with Merlot Sauce

[Aaryq]

Howdy, folks.
I just finished serving my 2 oldest daughters, wife, and Mother-in-Law a great meal.  It was steaks (prepared Medium, Well, and Medium Rare) with Merlot Sauce with a side of Roasted Garlic Herb Potatoes.  Now...the recipe is actually Fillet Mignon with Merlot Sauce but when we stopped by the market the fillet mignon left for the day was...leaving more to be desired so I went with a new York Strip.  Anyway, the potatoes were just a tish underseasoned (still working on a recipe before I post anything) but the steaks turned out very great (and the merlot sauce helped the potatoes taste better).  I'm sure the steaks would be a lot more tender with the merlot sauce but, meh...
Here's the link for the Steak and Merlot Saucehttp://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Filet-with-a-Merlot-Sauce/Detail.aspx

I added a few shakes of meat tenderizer, salt and pepper to the whole mix, as well as infused the olive oil for the steaks with some garlic.

It was cute too...I'm sure that it may be a "you'd have to have been there to get it" thing but I'll share it anyway.  My 3 year old daughter was my waitress for the night.  She brought out the plates, silverwear and all that stuff first.  She came back because "Customer Mommy wants a bigger fork."  Once the table were set, she took their orders one at a time when I was cooking the steaks.  Food and plates were hot so I carried them out...then she made me bring back mommy's steak.  "Customer Mommy's Steak is still alive!"  It needed a few more minutes on the grill.  We PRETENDED to spit on the steak when we brought it back out (mommy got a laugh).   When she started eating she said that she was Customer Abbey and not Waitress Abbey and insisted we called her so.

After all of that, we actually got her to clean her plate without telling her (normally a battle in our household).  It was a good dinner, everyone's fat and happy and it's not really about nothing but I figured I'd share it with you.

[BReilley]

Thanks for sharing.  We just bought a big bottle of merlot for French onion soup, so it'll be nice to have another recipe for which to use the wine :)

[Ben]

Yeah, that sounds like a really tasty sauce. I'm gonna try it the next time I make some fillets.

[Chuck Dye]

I like wine sauces (reduce red wine to 10% of its original volume, thicken with pureed fresh carrot, add salt, pepper, garlic to taste-great on steak!) but still prefer to pan fry my steaks, then deglaze the pan with brandy, minced shallots or onion, and chopped parsley.  On occasion, I add minced chillies, serranos or, if I can get them, the fierce little Thai prik kee noo.

N.B.:  Don't spend $4/lb or more for shallots at the mainstream groceries until you check the oriental grocers.  I get better quality at a third the price from various Vietnamese and Chinese grocers.