Sunday night steak

I mentioned I'm on a diet?  Here's a little peak behind the scenes, along with some practical "how to" ideas on cooking beef (I've cooked and consumed more steak in the last two weeks than in the prior 6 months, and IMHO I'm getting pretty good at it.)

This beauty is the Cuisinart Griddler; we got it a few years back and it's been in regular rotation since.  For the steak on Sunday evening, I used the "grill plates" but for the Saturday morning pancakes we used the flat "griddle plates" - the top of the press lays back to offer two griddle surfaces for things like pancakes.

I believe my mother-in-law gifted us with this jar of dried herbs.  Maybe it's from Williams Sonoma?  At any rate, I've been experimenting with applying different seasonings to the meat, and at different stages of the prep.  In this case, I convinced myself that heating the herbs along with the meat on the grill would somehow "rob" the herbs of their health benefits, so I melted some butter, stirred the herbs in last minute, and brushed the mix onto the steaks as they cooled.

The finished product looked, smelled, and tasted pretty good.  Exact cooking times and temps vary by altitude, size of the steak, and how relatively freaked out the Wife is about her steak being "too pink"; in this case I set the griddler to the line between "MED" and "HIGH" and cooked my steak for about 4 minutes to medium rare, and hers for about 7 minutes to a touch beyond medium.