Chicken Fried Steaks with Spicy Blue Cheese Sauce

I got home from a work trip and didn't want to go to the store so it was time to create my own mystery basket contest from what I already had. I was actually inspired by a culinary competition I'd seen the night before--I just had to work with the ingredients I already had. You can see my choices below (well there were more choices, but this is where my mind went).

What is a Sirloin Tip Steak???!!! My mom had given me a variety of cuts from a half of beef they'd purchased. Beef cuts have so many different names--so I looked this up and found out that it's from the round. So its a lean cut! Awesome. That also meant it needed some "TLC" and probably shouldn't be grilled up as a normal steak. So I decided to make a sort of chicken fried steak. I put it on top of whole wheat pasta and spinach and then made a spicy blue cheese sauce.

Chicken Fried Steaks with Spicy Blue Cheese Sauce
1 cup cooked whole wheat pasta
2 beef sirloin tip side steaks
1/4 cup flour
1 egg
1 Tbsp water
1/4 cup dried bread crumbs
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp garlic powder
Salt and pepper
2 tsp vegetable oil
2 Tbsp blue cheese crumbles
2 Tbsp light sour cream
hot sauce to taste
1 package frozen chopped spinach

Cook pasta and set aside. Place steaks on cutting board, top with plastic wrap and pound thin with a large pan or mallet if you have one. Pound until about 1/4 inch thick and cut each steak in half. Heat oil over medium heat in skillet.

In shallow bowl combine flour and salt and pepper to your liking. In second bowl lightly whisk egg and water. In third bowl combine bread crumbs, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper to taste. Dredge steaks in flour, then egg, then bread crumbs. Place in skillet and cook about 3-5 minutes on each side until evenly golden and 145 degrees.

Meanwhile, heat spinach in microwave. Season with salt and pepper. Mix blue cheese, sour cream and hot sauce in small bowl.

Mound 1/2 cup pasta on plate, top with as much spinach as you'd like. Place two steaks atop pasta and spinach. Top with half the blue cheese mixture.

Makes two servings.

This was absolutely delicious. I also feel like it was a rather healthy version of chicken fried steak--if there ever was one. I sort of mixed it all up when I was eating it. I liked to have a taste of each item in every bite.

I'm making this again--but next time I'll have to go buy the steaks since I used my mystery meat successfully!