Steak Friday with Truffled Potatoes

Happy day, it's Friday!  Friday, another week gone by.  Friday, the kids will be home, no work ahead, run around crazily all weekend, or do nothing at all.  I love Fridays.  A chance to recover from the week, enjoy the weekend, and celebrate the week ahead.. another opportunity to get it all right.  

Fridays pose a different challenge on the dinner front.  Depending how the week or day went, it's pull out all the stops and go big, or give yourself a break, I've exhausted my ingenuity for the week.  I was struggling today.  What to do with steak, asparagus and potatoes that's new and appealing.  Really?!  

Let's start with the easiest.  Put all the pressure on the grill guy.. Chris.  Drizzle asparagus with olive oil.  Grill.  Take two good beef tenderloins, salt and pepper, grill to perfection.  

Sauce.  Sauce fixes everything, even when it doesn't need fixing.  I sauteed minced shallots and sliced mushrooms in a little butter.  To that I added mustard powder, thyme and ground black pepper.  Deglaze with red wine and reduce.  Add beef stock and puree in a blender.  Return to pan and boil to reduce.  At this point, we had a serious debate over the addition of cream.  It went on for several minutes... guess who won.  Cream of course.  

Part of my aversion to cream was that I had planned on using mascarpone in the whipped potatoes.  I used a combination of yukon gold and sweet potatoes.  Cut into 2" pieces and boil in chicken stock until break apart soft.  The potatoes should be somewhat dry, but there should be a little bit of liquid left.  Add in mascarpone cheese and a little drizzle of white truffle oil and whip with a hand held mixer.  

The reason I chose sweet and yukon gold potatoes was because they looked so lovely in the store.  They were knee buckling good and took center stage over the tenderloin.  Sweet, potato-y, creamy bites of bliss.

Friday, sweet Friday.