This meal we decided we wanted to make a simplified beef wellington (without proscuitto, and with the puff pastry cooked seperately.)  So instead of wrapping the filet mignon in puff pastry, we cooked all the ingredients: the filets, the puff pastry rounds and the mushroom topping, separately.  Then we put them all together.  For sides, we made a healthy version of creamed spinach, baked potatoes and a Boston lettuce salad.

For  the Beef Wellington, we used three different types of mushrooms- shiitake, cremini and oysters to make the mushroom topping We diced them and sauteed them in butter and truffle salt.

We seasoned the filet mignons with a crust of salt and pepper, and seared them for about two minutes a side. Then we placed them in the oven to finish.  Even though the filets looked pretty amazing, Alex had the ingenius idea to inject butter into the steaks using a syringe (an unused one that Dad brought home from work!).  It worked pretty well except a couple times the butter exploded out of the filet.

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For the puff pastry we used store made puff pastry and rolled it out, then we cut out ovals the approximate size of each filet (we cut a piece of parchment paper the size of a filet and use that as our guide).  Then we baked the pastry in the oven (while the filets were finishing up).  The pastry puffed up so much that we ultimately cut it in half to use around our filets.

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For the sides, we made made creamed spinach.  First we steamed about 10 oz. of spinach with a sliced small onion and a clove of garlic.  Then we pressed all the liquid out of it and put it in the processor with salt, pepper and cottage cheese. Voila, beautiful healthy creamed spinach.  For the Boston Lettuce salad, the hardest part was cleaning the lettuce.  Then we just added goat cheese, cranberries and walnuts. And then we made baked potatoes (i.e. we baked them!)

To plate it all, we put a smear of the creamed spinach on the plate and then we made a Beef Wellington sandwich, if you will, with the puff pastry as the “bread”,  the steaks as the main ingredient, and the mushrooms as the topping.  It was DELICIOUS!!!