A Santa Fe Beef Salad Un-Recipe

Un-Recipe because it was kind of thrown together after I couldn't find the ingredients for the original recipe I was going to try. I wanted something pretty light and good clean flavor. I have still been eating in vacation mode, ya know?

Here is the gist of the salad:

Flank Steak: marinated in a mix of oil, minced garlic, sea salt, freshly ground pepper, cumin, and maybe more. Haha. The husband mixed it together, so I am not certain what all is in it. We like to keep it simple so you can actually taste the meat. After it was marinated for a couple of hours, it was slapped on the grilled to mouth watering goodness. Then we squeezed a tad of lime on it while it was still hot. After letting the meat sit, we thinly sliced it.

Green leaf lettuce: You know...wash it....chop it....arrange on a platter or in a bowl

Diced tomatoes: I wanted plum, Target didn't have plum....so I used on the vine

Thinly sliced red onion because it is pretty

Avocado: ours was mangled due to a little girl who wouldn't stop eating the avocado slices. I couldn't cut it fast enough.

Homemade Tortilla Chips...cause they are good. Just don't make too many...because you can't stop eating them. You should only make a handful. And when I say you, I mean me.

Black beans: rinsed and drained

Arrange it all in a pretty fashion and add a pinch of sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Use dressing of choice, but I kept it light and just used lime juice. You can also top with your fave salsa and cheese.

That was fancy, huh? :)

Making Use Of Leftovers! Crostata with Mushrooms and Pancetta

Every few weeks we do homemade pizza. We don't aways make our own dough (didn't this week), but we sometimes do. The kids made their own crazy pizzas, and my husband and I sauteed some things we had sitting in the fridge. Shallots, mushrooms, garlic. Then added on random toppings that sounded great at the time. Then we sliced up a ball of mozzarella and he grilled the pizzas. (We have a Big Green Egg). I tell you what, grilled pizzas are so much better than baked pizzas. Doing so makes DiGiorno taste like the bomb on those lazy nights! Ok....so the pizza was great. But we had left over veggies. Hmmmm...what to do? (ahem, scroll down)

After watching Food Network, I was inspired by the oh so lovely (okay....okay...smokin HOT) Giada! So I picked up some pancetta (and a couple of other things needed for the crust) and went to town on Crostata w/Mushrooms and Pancetta. Oh my. The crust was TO DIE FOR. It was awesome. Like really really good. Since my kids don't dig the mushrooms, I think next time roasted root veggies would be very nice. So if you make this, don't hold strong to the mushroom idea. Add in any roasted or sauteed veggies. But don't leave out the pancetta. It made the dish! Enjoy!

P.S. I plan on trying the other recipes from that episode. They looked yum.

Poor Vampires

So, tonight I wanted to include my son in the dinner making "event". So after his homework of finding 3D shapes, he pulled out his Disney cookbook to find out how to make meatballs. He found the recipe (Mr. Incredible's to be exact)but we waited to start that. FIRST, we had something else to do.

We had to try to make Garlic Oil and Garlic Smash thanks to 64 sq ft kitchen. I used rosemary as the herb though because it is what we had. Drew had so much fun smelling the raw garlic and talking about it. My kitchen (and hair and clothes and hands and son and dog) smell of garlic still. The vampires will be sad tonight.
While the garlic and olive oil were in the oven we started on the Tigger Tail pasta.Other than assistance with ingredients, Drew was on his own to make meatballs. He read the ingredients with help from me and all by himself he mixed it (clean hands folks) and formed the balls. He was mighty proud.

With all of this work we used a jarred sauce (gasp) we got from Central Market with a few additions from me.

It was a decent dinner with some special time with my son (Jordan was sleeping during the prep, she missed out).

Now, for a photographic journey (even some black and whites.. a challenge for food):

mmm...garlic

Good Night