A little bit of this, a little dash of that

Briar looked expectantly to her daughter as she gave her a little quiz for what their next steps should be. Technically either choice would have worked, but there was one option that was notably more reasonable and she just wanted to see if her daughter would use a bit of critical thinking to come to that conclusion. Of course her bright little girl passed with flying colors and she grinned with a nod to confirm that she was on the right track. "Very good! We could season it first and then slice it so if you do ever think you're going to cook it as one whole piece and end up changing your mind it's very easy to make that adjustment, but this way will be a little easier and less messy." With that decision made, she reached for one of the knives they kept in the kitchen for just such a purpose and started slicing the meat into individual portions. She pointed out a few places where the fat and sinew were a little too thick to cook off and she cut those off as well, showing her daughter how to butcher the meat before they got to more fun stuff.

With that done she reached for a bottle of oil and passed it to Ember, helping her daughter to make sure she had a good hold on it. "Okay, now we need to drizzle a bit of oil on all the pieces. This will help it brown up on the outside and help our seasonings stick to them!" After Ember had poured a bit of oil on each steak, she began to rub the oil across each side of the meat and had Ember do the same. Between the two of them it took no time at all and then they were onto seasoning–adding some crushed salt and herbs to the surface of each steak. This was quite an extravagant meal for a random day of the week, but she was having so much fun cooking with her little girl and she wouldn't dream of turning down Ember when she was so excited to cook this for everyone so here they were.

"Perfect! Good job, Ember," she said with a grin as she grabbed a towel to clean the oil from her paws before reaching for Ember's paws and cleaning them off as well. "Now we just need to cut down our carrots into chunks so we can get them roasting. The steaks can marinade and soak up all those flavors. Believe it or not, the carrots will actually take longer to cook than the steaks will!" While she began to cut the carrots into smaller pieces, she asked, "Would you like the carrots to be more savory with some herbs and spices or do you want to go sweet with some honey?"

"Briar Carpathius"