Summer salad

As you already know, I love salads. I love entree salads, not as much as salad bars, so I guess I should say I like entree salads. After not cooking for two days I was really looking forward to making dinner tonight. I found a new recipe in a magazine last week (which is where I get a ton of my recipes, but more on that in a future post) and made sure to add it to our menu for this week. (I'll be blogging about my menu planning in the future as well.)

Here's a link to the original recipe. I did made a few changes, see my version below. I cooked the steak indoors, in our largest cast iron pan. (We don't a very functional BBQ right now, which makes me very sad, otherwise I would have thrown the meat on the grill.) I cooked the steak a few minutes longer per side as well. I'm not fond of rare meat. Medium well is where I like my steak. I also didn't precoat the salad with dressing. I never know when I'll actually get to sit down and eat and I've been burnt by a soggy salad one too many times. Lastly, we just had tortilla chips on the side.

Fajita Chop-Chop Salad
recipe adapted from Family Fun magazine
Hands-on Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes (includes marinating time)
Serves: 4

Ingredients
FOR THE STEAK
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 (8-ounce) skirt steaks

FOR THE SALAD
1 large head Romaine lettuce, finely shredded
1 medium red pepper, chopped
1 cup frozen corn, cooked and cooled
1 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack

FOR THE DRESSING
1/2 cup prepared salsa
1/4 cup sour cream

Instructions
In a large bowl, combine the olive oil, chili powder, cumin, salt, and pepper. Add the steaks and toss well to coat. Marinate the steaks in the refrigerator for one hour. In another large bowl, toss all the ingredients for the salad except for the chips. Refrigerate this mixture until you're ready to use it.

Heat a large cast iron pan until very hot. Cook the meat about 4-5 minutes per side. Let the meat rest for 5 minutes, then slice it into 1/2-inch-thick strips.

Whisk together the dressing ingredients. To serve, fill each bowl with salad, then top it with several strips of steak and the salad dressing.

Here's a picture before I put the dressing on. The dressing would have ruined the beautifulness!

The salad was pretty good. Next time I will make some changes to the marinade. The first time I try a new recipe I typically follow the directions exactly. I've become more confident in my cooking and when making a dish a second time, I often adjust the recipe based on our taste. To this recipe I will use more chili powder, add a little cayenne pepper and lime juice to the marinade.

I have a three ring binder I keep most of my recipes in. (Once again, more on that in the future.) Below is a picture of how I'll file this recipe. The original, plus a little post it note with the changes I'll make next time. If those changes work, the post it will stay, if not it will be replaced with a new post it of notes until I fine tune the recipe.

One the menu for tomorrow, Hawaiian Meatballs!

Too many new things...a day late.

We had our steak dinner last night. Overall, I was a little disappointed, hence I didn't blog last night and folded 5 baskets of laundry instead.

My husband BBQ'd the steaks. I made mushroom couscous and my in-laws brought over fresh salad fixings. It looked like I had a salad bar in my house. It was awesome, fresh lettuce, red cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, sunflower seeds...the list goes on, I was in heaven. If I ever open a restaurant it will be a salad bar restaurant and even if I'm the only one that eats there I will be in heaven. Oh and we BBQ'd peaches for dessert.

For steaks we typically use this Santa Maria seasoning. It is wonderful. We use it on chicken a lot as well. During a recent Mom's Group event I received this steak seasoning by Tom Douglas:so I decided to give it a try. It was good, but not as good as our Santa Maria. This rub was quite a bit sweeter, the Santa Maria's is more savory.

For the couscous I used this recipe that I found during a Google search. I added sauteed shallots and pine nuts as well. The couscous turned out ok. I doubled the recipe, but didn't have two packages of dried mushrooms so I used just plain water for the extra liquid. I think it would have been way better with the right amount of mushrooms and mushroom broth.

I also sauteed some fresh mushrooms. My mushroom recipe is easy, get a package of whole mushrooms, quarter them and saute them in butter. I love mushrooms, raw or cooked. I like to keep my mushrooms simple.

Below is a picture of the meal. Not the best picture, while I love my iPhone it isn't really good at taking good pictures of food.

Oh here's my delicious salad...yum!
We bought a big box of peaches at the farmer's market on Thursday and the plan was to make peach cobbler. The peaches were still a little firm so we decided to try and BBQ the peaches instead. I am continually hearing how good grilled peaches are so was excited to give it a try. After lots of internet searching I decided on this recipe. I didn't use the basil though, I'm not a big fan of fresh basil. I was a little apprehensive of the balsamic vinegar, but almost every recipe I found called for it. (I'm glad I used it, I really liked the flavor it added.) As I'm sure you can tell from the picture, the peaches turned out just eh. I think either our grill was too cold or the peaches too firm. We are going to try again once the peaches are riper. The vanilla ice cream was super yummy with the peach juices though!

Hopefully the next time I cook I'll be more excited with the results. :) That's what I get for trying too many new things in one meal!