CONFESSION: For a very long time I was a well-done girl. Meat needed to be cooked through… meat-colored meat was unacceptable. I still sort of am, in many ways. I’m venturing into the medium range for my steaks, but burgers must be well-done, and a drip of blood-red meat juice still makes me squick. But I’m getting better. Really.

That’s why I took a chance when grilling the steak for this meal, and it made a really big difference! I just grilled it on my Mario Batalli grill pan, since I don’t have the luxury of a nice outdoor barbecue.

This was also my first time trying Archer Farms’ Basil Pesto Cream Sauce, Target’s new house brand of “gourmet” sauces and food products. And the verdict is… meh? This has sadly been the case for every Archer Farms product I’ve tried, and that makes me incredibly sad. They look so promising, with their pretty packaging and exotic flavors, but so far everything I’ve had has been bland as hell until I doctored it up. This sauce was still just cream sauce — barely any basil flavor — even after I added garlic, a few cubes of Dorot Frozen Basil, fresh tomatoes and peppers and shredded parmesan. The steak was well-seasoned, which balanced it out, and it was a yummy dish overall, but I like my basil cream sauce to be overpowering with the flavors of basil and garlic.

In fact, the inspiration for this dish, Bertolli’s Steak Rigatoni & Portobello Mushrooms frozen prepared meal (picked up for a couple dollars on super-sale + coupon), had far more flavor than Target’s jarred sauce. I think I’ve officially sworn off Archer Farms’ sauces, which is just too bad. There’s too much good stuff out there to keep wasting my time with something that doesn’t work.