Tag Archives: Dinner

Apr 28 2014
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LIFE + FOOD, RECIPE

April Showers Bring … Steak!

2014-04-27 20.03.42

flat iron steak & seasoned onion rings

This morning, I had the pleasure of waking up to a roaring and rumbling thunder storm.  In my experience, there’s almost nothing quite as enjoyable as waking up to thunderstorm at 7:30 on a Sunday morning and simply laying in bed enjoying the sound of the thunder and the rain, especially since I didn’t have to be anywhere for the next few hours.  An additional joy of a nice spring thunder storm is the peaceful weather it leaves in its wake.  This weather just happens to be perfect for grilling out!

The thunderstorm passed and the day went on, and upon the arrival of dinner time I decided it necessary to grill a steak.  In my last post, I mentioned the purchase of a new house.  This house just happened to come with a brick charcoal grill in the back yard.  Now anyone who’s ever used a charcoal grill before knows that when you light up the coals, you can’t JUST grill one steak.  Unlike their gas counterparts, you cannot simply turn off a charcoal grill when you’re done with it, so you might as well utilize it while it’s hot.  So my one steak turned into a steak, some seasoned onion rings, and lemon pepper chicken.

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lemon pepper chicken

I’ve mentioned before that some for the food I prepare is pretty tasty, but tonight’s selection from the grill easily takes the cake.  At the risk of sounding full of myself, I can cook some very tasty food. Tonight, however, I blew my own expectations completely out of the water.  As I was eating what I’d just taken off the grill, I was so overwhelmed by the goodness of what I was tasting that I had to stop and raise my arms in the air as if I had just scored a touchdown.  I thought to myself, how is this so good – and then I thought of all of you.  You have to try this!  It was, simply put, amazing.  If you have a charcoal grill, light it up tonight and take these simple yet incredible recipes for a spin.  I promise you, you won’t regret it.

Oh, and invite your friends, neighbors, family, coworkers – whoever.  Upon tasting this, you will have an overwhelming urge to share your creation with everyone you know!  Yes, it’s that good.

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pure enjoyment

Happy grilling!

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Jul 23 2013
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LIFE + FOOD, RECIPE

Monday Night Quinoa

Every Monday night, my friend and I host a weekly dinner and discussion group. We meet at her house, and most of the time I cook dinner for everyone. It’s a fun time. We all gather around the kitchen and talk about life while I cook dinner, and then we get to enjoy a lovely meal together. There are a few of us that are there fairly consistently, and when you share a meal like that every week, you begin to know each other like family. I love it!

It’s one thing to walk through this veggie desert by myself, but when I’m cooking for other people as well, I feel a particular pressure to make something that everyone will enjoy, even if they’re not eating a vegatarian diet. So I did what I always do when I need to cook something that needs to be tasty and fun. I cooked something I’ve never cooked before. Not only that, I cooked with ingredients that I’ve never used before. It’s a risk, I suppose, but over the years I’ve become confident in my culinary gifting.

QuinoaLettuceWrapTonight, I cooked up some lettuce wraps, using quinoa as a base. Quinoa is a grain, similar to rice. But when it’s cooked, it has a texture similar to couscous. I’ve never cooked quinoa until tonight, and I’ve only eaten it a couple times. I don’t have a whole lot of experience with it. Fortunately, like rice, it’s pretty easy to work with. To be fair though, I didn’t actually prepare the quinoa. My friend, at whose house we host this dinner discussion group, prepared it in her steamer. So I can’t take all the credit.

Anyway, this is what I ended up with. It turned out very nicely.

It’s a quinoa lettuce wrap with tomatoes, carrots, fresh green chillies, red bell pepper, sweet red onions, black beans, peaches, lime and cilantro with fresh avocado. It was quite a cacophony of flavors. Oh, and it was topped with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. The vinegar mingling with the peaches, oh what flavor! Top it with some avocado and a slice of lime… Delicious! Plus, if you try you can make it look very pretty. Pretty is always a plus when it comes to food.

If this is something you’d like to try for yourself – I recommend it – you can find the recipe over on the recipe’s section of the blog. It was pretty simple to prepare.

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