Shake It Up

I love walking through a kitchen store with all its gadgets. I've bought—and then discarded—so many kitchen doodads over the years. Most of the time I decided that just the basic items worked best. If you have decent knife skills, you don't need 7 different specialty choppers.

But every now and then you find a "keeper." This little salad dressing bottle is one of the good finds. You can easily make salad dressing without an official bottle, but this just makes is quick and easy to mix and then it's easy to store.

If you keep up with the news, you know that food manufacturers have struggled a bit as of late as people move away from processed foods. Good for us. I just read a list of processed foods you should stop using. Here in my kitchen, we have replaced nearly all of the overprocessed foods. But I'm guessing that if you are like me, the one thing we still keep on hand is bottled salad dressing. It's easy to use and it has a long shelf life. But it's really quick to make your own dressings.

I grew up with the homemade Thousand Island dressing that was just mayonnaise and ketchup and a splash of vinegar mixed together and maybe some salad cubes stirred in when Mother got fancy. It was delicious.

These days my tastes have moved toward lighter dressings. My personal favorite is balsamic vinaigrette.  On my handy-dandy bottle are five different recipes and I just pour in the ingredients up to the level markings and then shake. If you don't have this bottle, you can measure into a small jar. 

BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil (or about 1 tsp. of dried basil)
pinch of garlic
sale & pepper to taste

Measure into a small jar with a lid. Screw lid on tightly and shake vigorously until ingredients are mixed. Store in refrigerator for up to a week.

You might enjoy the Balsamic dressing with this salad. It's a favorite of ours.

CHOPPED STEAK SALAD

3/4 lb. flank steak
salt & pepper
1 or 2 heads romaine, chopped
2 cups red cabbage chopped
1 (15-oz can canellini beans (or other white beans) drained & rinsed
1/2 cup chopped roasted red peppers
1/4 cup chopped parsley
Italian dressing (we used the balsamic vinaigrette)

Season flank steak with sale & pepper. Grill 3 to 5 minutes on each side. Let rest a few minutes, then cut thin, diagonal slices across the grain and cut into bite-size pieces.

In a large bowl, mix steak, romaine, cabbage, beans, peppers and parsley and toss with dressing. (We added feta cheese.)

Radical Hospitality

At a meeting this week our new pastor talked briefly about hospitality...how it's the people that matter, not the perfectness of your house or cooking. It had been quite some time since we had invited friends for dinner. And those words kept coming back to me all week.

So yesterday I called friends and asked them to dinner. A last minute invitation means the meal must be simple. And "simple" suited the miserably hot weather, too. It's not the time to be slaving away in the kitchen. We spent much more time talking and laughing than cooking. So glad I practiced a little "radical hospitality" this weekend. My house may not have been perfect, but this recipe comes close.

You've seen this recipe here before--but I tweaked it a little this time.

Chopped Steak Salad

3/4 to 1 lb. flank steak

salt & pepper

1 bag hearts of romaine 

1 to 2 cups chopped red cabbage

1 (15-oz.) can cannellini beans, drained & rinsed

1/2 cup chopped roasted red peppers 

1 cucumber, peeled & sliced

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Italian salad dressing

Blue cheese crumbles

Season steak with salt & pepper. Grill 3 to 5 minutes on each side. Let rest a few minutes, then cut thin diagonal slices across the grain and cut into bite-size pieces.

In a large bowl, combine steak with romaine, beans, peppers, cucumbers and parsley. Toss with salad dressing. (I used a whole 14-oz. bottle of Kraft.) Sprinkle blue cheese over the top.

That's it---your whole meal in one bowl. We added Sister Shubert's Dinner Rolls and that was it. It's pretty. It's delicious. The entire meal prep was no more than 15 minutes. Not even many dishes to wash up. There's no excuse not to have friends over when it's that easy. I'll finish cleaning later this week. Maybe.

The fun part was that today WE got a dinner invitation from other friends for later this week! I think there really is something to the saying that what you give, you get back. 

Summer Supper

Jessica is home for the holiday weekend. After all the cleaning she helped do at the lake house, she might think twice about coming back! She also volunteered (or did I ask her?) to make dinner when we got back home. I was ready to collapse on the porch and rest. So I was delighted that she was in the kitchen instead of me.

Her recipe was a winner. It was on the table in minutes. If you need an easy summer supper, give this a try.  (You can find more of her recipes on her blog.)

Chopped Steak Salad

3/4 pound flank steak

salt & pepper

1 or 2 heads romaine, chopped

2 cups chopped red cabbage

1 (15-oz) can cannellini beans (or other white beans), drained & rinsed

1/2 cup chopped roasted red peppers

1/4 cup chopped parsley

Italian dressing

Season flank steak with salt and pepper. Grill 3 to 5 minutes on each side. (Can use a stovetop grill pan or the broiler also.) Let rest a few minutes, then cut thin, diagonal slices across the grain and cut into bite-size pieces.

In a large bowl, combine steak with lettuce, cabbage, beans, peppers and parsley. Toss with your favorite Italian dressing. (We forgot to get the red cabbage for this and added Feta cheese instead. Make this salad suit what you have on hand.)

Baby Sister was glad that Aunt Jessica stopped by her house, too. Aunt Jessica brings her computer with all its current music and they dance. Aunt Jessica's playlist is very different than mine. Baby Sister likes it groovy. 

Spur-Of-The-Minute Meal

Plans change. We had talked about going out for dinner tonight, but by 6:15 PM I realized that I needed to cook. Thankfully there was a flank steak in the refrigerator. And using the power of the internet, I quickly found an easy marinade recipe. Easy enough that by 7:30 PM we were sitting down to eat. And the weather just right for dining on the porch. It's been quite some time since we've been able to do that. (My husband might say that it's been quite some time since I've cooked supper.)

The marinade only takes a few minutes to prepare. I still had time to sit down and read my email and check out a couple of knitting patterns while the steak was in the refrigerator for a half hour. Then as the meat was grilling I steamed the vegetables. This is truly an easy dinner.

Grilled Flank Steak with Onions

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons dried oregano

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1/4 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground

1-1/2 lb flank steak

1 large red onion, cut into 1/4-inch slices

1 teaspoon olive oil

In a shallow glass dish (or ziploc bag), mix vinegar, oil, oregano, garlic and pepper. Add steak and turn to coat. Make sure that steak is well coated with vinegar mixture. Cover dish (or seal bag) and marinate in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Heat grill. Remove steak from marinade and discard the marinade. Rub onion slices with 1 tsp. of olive oil. Grill steak, turning once, until medium rare, about 15 minutes, (or longer for desired degree of doneness.) Let steak rest for 10 minutes. 

While steak is resting, grill onions, turning occasionally, until lightly charred and tender, about 7 to 9 minutes.

Thinly slice steak across the grain. Top with grilled onions to serve.

Serves 6

It's nice to have a few quick recipes on hand for this nights like this. When it was all done and we were sitting in the cool of the evening with the candle lit, the radio turned low, enjoying our dinner, we both commented that we would not have had a better meal or a more pleasant evening anywhere.

And now we have leftovers for tomorrow night. Think it will be turned into another easy meal we've made before--Chopped Steak Salad. I KNOW we will be eating at home tomorrow night. The Gamecocks will be playing Georgia on television and dear husband will have a front row seat--right in our den.