The first {official} day of fall is coming up and it’s going to be a weird weather week here in Omaha. A cold and rainy weekend followed up immediately by 90 degrees… Like, Really?! The unusual weather has my cravings all out of whack as well. I want to dive face first into everyone’s fall and winter favorite {soup} but I’m not yet ready to let go of the end of summer. Yet for whatever reason the changing seasons has me craving these Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches I whipped up last week. But really, who needs a reason to crave a hot, cheesy, meaty sandwich?

Therefore, tonight what you need to make are- Philly’s! I don’t know why this isn’t (or doesn’t seem to be) as big of a home cooked meal as it should be. A Philly is super easy to make, you can customize it to your tastes, and you don’t have to venture out of your house in public and put on *real* pants.

My husband is a big fan of PepperJack’s Grill and I enjoy making my own variations of restaurant dishes, so last week was a win-win. Then it became a win-win-win when Brice kept repeating with every bite how good he thought they were. My husband has two kinds of positive reviews: “It’s good, you should make these again”; and {eyes open, mouth full} “this is so good”, over and over again. It’s that second review I always strive for. He’s not trying to save my feelings. He’s honestly in love with what I just cooked for us and would even choose it over eating out…{even he doesn’t want to put on *real* pants}.

The Process

First take your steak and place in the freezer for 30-40 min before cooking. The partially frozen steak will allow for you to easily slice the meat as thin as possible. If you are using steak you already had frozen, slice when the meat is partially thawed.

Then look closely at your meat, you want to cut against the grain. Slice as thin as possible, lightly Salt and pepper and set aside.

You can also opt to by pre-sliced beef or ask your butcher to slice it for you. *At this time you should also preheat your oven to 400.

This meal will go really fast so you need to prep all of your veggies ahead of time. Dice your peppers, onions, and mushrooms into medium-sized pieces. I like to keep the pieces a little bit larger, but at a dice instead of slices.

Maybe it’s just me, but I hate biting into something and having an entire slice come all the way out. It normally hits me in the chin because I wasn’t expecting it, then we have a mess. Like eating an onion ring! You all know what I’m talking about…but I digress…

Now that you have all of your meat sliced and your veggies prepped, its time to heat your skillet on high. Add 2 tablespoons of butter. When the butter is melted add your salt, pepper, and seasoning salt. We have already lightly seasoned the meat so this is going to infuse the butter with the flavor and get some seasoning on the pan itself before placing the meat in.

Then, add your steak and cook through. It takes only about 5 min as your pan should be screaming hot. When cooked through, remove the steak and place on a pan. Leave the juices in the skillet.

Add in your onion, mushrooms, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of butter. Cook until tender. 10-15 min.

In the last 5 min of cooking you will place your hoagie buns in the oven (whole). This will keep the soft insides of the roll but give it a crunchy exterior that will hold up after adding the meat and veggies, in their juices.

If you want to kick up the heat now would be the time to add your jarred jalapenos and juices. My husband wanted the heat, and I did not. So it’s a little more work, but we both felt it was worth it.

I pulled out half of the veggies and placed with the meat, and then put half the meat back in the skillet. Bring the meat back up to temp then turn to low. Form the mixture into a line then place 3-4 slices of cheese on top. Place a lid over the skillet to create steam to melt the cheese.

Scoop out your mixture and place into your toasted bun. Then wrap the whole sandwich in Foil for approx. 5 minutes. This worked perfect to keep my sandwich warm while I added heat to the other, and it continued to melt the cheese in the sandwich and merry all the yummy flavors.

Then because Brice wanted his spicy, I added the rest of the ingredients back to the skillet plus jalapenos and about 2 tablespoons of jalapeno juice to the skillet. You should only need to cook long enough to warm the meat back up and melt the cheese. Then repeat the foil process as you did with the other sandwiches.

You don’t need to split the ingredients up like I did. I only did it so that I could add the jalapenos to half without adding that flavor into everything. However, I do recommend working in batches. It gives you more room in your pan and I felt it helped my time management. I wasn’t rushing at the end to make sure it all stayed hot and nothing burned.

I hope you enjoy!

Recipe!