Cube Steak à la Salisbury from Serious Eats ★★
Classic Mashed Potatoes from NY Times ★★★

I had no idea how to use the cube steak from our meat CSA (Moomaw Family Farms) till I thought of the Salisbury Steak of my childhood. Which, to be honest, was mostly a frozen Swanson meal where the meat was a super-smooth ground meat patty and a puck of mashed potatoes.

Cube steak is a cheap cut of beef that is and tenderized/pounded so that the indentations left in it look like tiny cubes. So a cheap dish of Salisbury Steak and potatoes seemed an appropriate use.

Unfortunately, the meat was still pretty tough and chewy with this recipe. I liked the flavor of the mushroom gravy with onions, although I would’ve thickened it up a bit.

The mashed potatoes are pretty basic, and I left them a bit lumpy. It might’ve been more true to the frozen dinners of my youth to make it super creamy, though.