Reviews

I am pleased to say that even two days after the Tomato and Gorgonzola Soup was gone, Carter was STILL asking to have some. Now that should say something!

While Carter didn't ask for my TropiChop on a daily basis, he ate it about 4 times. And if you have children, you know it's pretty impressive if your child will eat something once...let alone 4 times in under a week.

(I do think that Carter's comfort foods are beans & rice, macaroni & cheese, and chicken nuggets, so it's a fair bet that he will eat those things at any time.)

Thinking of some meal ideas for next week. If you have any ideas, shoot them my way!

Tomato and Gorgonzola Soup

Tonight was one of those nights where I would have been content to eat a bowl of cereal, or snack on goldfish and ice cream instead of make something for dinner. But then I got to thinking of all the seemingly random ingredients I have collected over the last few weeks that really need to be eaten. I didn't want to make anything complicated - Carter ate dinner when he woke up from his nap at 4pm (he went to sleep without eating lunch today) and Matt was already in bed getting his nap on before work.

I had 4 ounces of Gorgonzola cheese, fresh basil from my garden, and a ridiculous number of canned diced tomatoes in the pantry. I was either going to make some kind of strange sauce for pasta, or make a soup. And even though it's 95 degrees outside, I opted for the soup figuring it would be lighter than any pasta dish I made.

The Ingredients

Steak Dinner

We have recently decided to try to start eating out less in an effort to curb our monthly expenses. It turns out when you're amateur foodies like we are (and/or lazy), you really prefer to eat out rather than eat at home. So I'm trying to make meals at least once a week that we might order out at a good restaurant. This past week I decided that I would make Friday night Steak Night. I had bought a Flat Iron Steak with no plans for it, so I set to searching for some ideas on how to make it special. My research taught me that Flat Irons are tender cuts of meat and easy to cook. Perfect.

I decided a while ago that you can't go wrong marinating beef (unless you marinate a Filet with Dales...NOT a good idea Matthew!). In a small bowl combine:

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon cracked black pepper

1 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves, crumbled

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 cup olive oil

I placed my 1 1/4 pound piece of steak in a gallon size zip top bag and added the marinade (as usual, I doubled the recipe...for some reason I'm afraid of not having enough marinade), refrigerating over night. When you're ready to grill your meat, pull it out of the refrigerator at least 15 minutes ahead of time to allow it to start coming to room temperature (it will cook more evenly this way). Preheat grill to medium-high heat and cook for 6 minutes on each side to reach medium-rare. If you want to be fancy about it, rotate your steak 90 degrees after three minutes on each side to give it authentic grilled steak markings. Cover with foil tent and let steak sit for at least 10 minutes before cutting into it to make sure all the internal juices don't run out on you. Cut against the grain (for more tender pieces) in small slices.

Pollo Tropical

So if you're anything like me, and grew up in South Florida, Pollo Tropical is A-Mazing! I went to eat there recently with a friend after a long hiatus away from it and it just renewed my love for beans and rice and mojo marinated pork. I really wanted to go get a TropiChop for dinner, but Matt insists that he isn't a fan. So I decided I would make my own version of my favorite TropiChop and prove to him that it's good food and he would love it if he just gave it a chance. I scoured the Internet for some kind of copy-cat recipe, but didn't really come up with anything that seemed right. So what did I do? A little of this, a little of that. And it was perfect!!

TropiChops are bowls filled with your favorite Pollo Tropical starch (or lettuce - but why would you do that?), some beans (if you like), veggies (again, if you like), and then the protein of your choice. Very simple, standard, basic cuisine found all over the Caribbean and Central America. So really, I knew I couldn't go too wrong.

July 4th Meal

I decided I was going to be All-American and make a patriotic meal of ribs for the 4th. My husband was pretty psyched - and then he saw what I had made for him. :) It's not my fault that I just can't seem to make food the way it should be. I mean, I don't really grill, and we don't have a smoker. I'm not really sure what he expected me to do. I know now that when I recipe says to bake spare ribs for 1 hour or less, run away. Far, far away. The good news is that the marinade and basting sauce for the ribs was fantastic! I just should have known that I should have baked (or slow cooked) the ribs for several hours.

When my parents were in town visiting I was showing them my pantry and all the "new-to-me" things I had bought. As soon as I showed my dad that hoisin and oyster sauce, he told me he had a great Chinese barbecue sauce recipe for ribs that he'd send me when they got home. Thirty some odd years ago my dad took a Chinese cooking class and has the old school recipe booklet to show for it, along with some pretty fantastic recipes inside. I always looked forward to the special occasions growing up when he would make sweet and sour pork from that little booklet. More recently, I hear he makes a mean Pepper Steak from the same class. I knew I would love the marinade.

Shepherd's Pie

I was in the mood for some comfort food, but since we had just eaten Mexican food on Sunday (let's face it, what Sunday don't we eat Mexican anymore?), I opted for my #2 comfort food of choice: potatoes. I think I've got some Irish blood in me somewhere, so we'll just say that's why it's comfort food for me. (My third choice would probably be bagels - and as much as I'd love to attribute that to my husband, the Bakery Market Manager for all the Panera Bread stores in Jacksonville, I developed my love and addiction to bagels a long time ago.) I digress. I had just bought a five pound bag of Yukon golds at the store and if you're anything like me, you know you have to dig in right away or before you know it you're throwing away a bag of stinky, juicy, rotten potatoes. I even had some freshly ground beef in the fridge, so Shepherd's Pie was my obvious choice.

This was not a meal I grew up eating, and I probably made it (and tried it) for the first time in college. I really can't remember how I made it the first time, but I can remember everything about the best Shepherd's Pie I ever had. The Cheesecake Factory.


Photo borrowed from another Blogger Site

Mushrooms. Peas. Carrots. Onions. Zucchini. Ground beef. Delicious gravy with Worcestershire sauce in it throughout. Amazing red mashed potatoes with Parmesan on top. When I ordered this for the first time I was there for dinner, so you know the portion was huge. (The above photo is the lunch-sized portion.) I remember being like halfway through the bowl of this delicious goodness and not being able to stop eating, even though I felt sick to my stomach. But it was so good. And SO worth the stomach ache.