Fajitas and Mexican Pasta Salad

It's summertime, hot and humid. Guests were coming over for a bbq, there would be a camp fire, marshmallows, and some fun and games with the kids. Who's not tired of hot dogs and hamburgers. Chicken is getting old, pork chops are for week nights, and ribs are a bit of a production and not for a large group.  Our family idea person a.k.a. SO, thought we should do a Mexican theme with fajitas and a cold salad. Perfect!

Mexican Pasta Salad with Pico de Gallo

I had also made a batch of fresh Pico de Gallo. It sounds strange, but it was a good addition to the salad. The salad was quite tasty, but just a tad dry. It wasn't really dry, but it was missing some texture. In any case, a dollop of the fresh condiment on top was a surprisingly good match. I didn't think of it at the time, but it might benefit from a bit of crunch as well, maybe crumbled tortilla chips.

The fajitas turned out particularly good. Unfortunately I didn't think to snap a picture of the fajitas, but everyone knows what they look like. The most interesting part of this whole endeavour was trying to find skirt steak. The history is quite interesting. The name is a Spanish nickname dating back to the 1930's in West Texas where the throwaway meat trimmings (including skirt steak) was given as payment to the Mexican vaqueros. In any case, skirt steak isn't all that common anymore - and there's quite a back story to the whole thing.  I went to two grocery stores and neither carry it at all. So I used flank instead. In the end, I think the two most important key points are the marinade, and slicing across the grain. Well a good sear helps as well.

Next Time:  will try to find skirt steak, and will try to crumble some tortilla chips on the salad

Me: 9/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: 6/10

Fast-Fry Beef and Goat Cheese Salad

SO had a hankering for steak salad, so we did the cheap and easy version. Instead of fancy steak we used fast-fry. We had one of those giant plastic containers of spinach with half of it left, so we used that. Finally, we needed something to make it interesting so add the cheese.  It could have arguably used some sort of sauce, but I actually like it a bit on the "dry" side, plus there was a tiny bit of pan dribblings that moistened it up a bit.

Fast-Fry Beef and Goat Cheese Salad

Since there are "three bears" in this house (as in too lumpy, too smooth, just right), we cannot possibly have just one variety of cheese for the meal. SSO had the usual medium St. Albert's cheddar, I had pepper goat cheese, and SO and fancy blue cheese.  No pepper on the steak for SSO either - "too spicy!". Overall, everyone was really happy - not sure if it was because it was truly an awesome meal, or just that we have been eating throw together crap for 6 weeks (see details re kitchen renovation in the previous blog entry).  Well I exaggerate perhaps a bit. One of the tricks I think here was the Montreal Steak Spice (a hit-you-over-the-head variety of spice), and another was slicing the steak really thinly once fried up.

Next Time: would try a higher-end version with nice steak and some fancy drizzling sauce.

Me: 9/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: 9/10 (!!)  It was eaten in component form, but "whatever"...

Steak and Potatoes

Rib Steak and Baked Potato

Seriously?  Yes!  What the heck is wrong with a big honkin' steak from the butcher, and a baked potato with lots of butter, salt & pepper and sour cream?  Who needs salad or veggies.  Well OK actually we need to eat more but once in a while is perfectly fine. Hence the tiny bit of cuke and tomato, brought on by a guilty food conscience.

In this case, the steaks were hefty rib steaks (as opposed to ribeye steaks, which have no bone) from our local butcher. See the Cattlemen's Beef Board website for a cool "interactive meat case" that explains all the various types of beef and cuts.  Get some good sear marks on there, cook it medium-rare, and enjoy the wonderful flavour from the significant marbling present.

Next Time: bacon for the potato

Me: 8/10
SO: 8/10
SSO: 4/10

Steak, Baked Potato and Caesar Salad

The weather is starting to hit above the freezing mark, so why not fire up the bbq. Yes, I know it is a grill and not a bbq, but we're in Canada, not Texas. And what is the best thing to start the season off with? The biggest T-bone steaks from our local butcher, naturally. 

Steak, baked potato with fresh chives and bacon,
and Caesar Salad with lemon-parmesan dressing

It's always a challenge keeping the 'cue at a high enough temperature in the winter, so it makes cooking the steak that much harder. Aimed for the usual medium-rare, and happily they didn't come out worse than a solid medium or a tad under medium. Phew. We tried an Applewood smoked bbq sauce - was pretty good, but didn't strictly speaking need it. Had to have a baked potato of course, with sour cream, real bacon and fresh chives. On the side was garlic bread, because we just abosolutely needed another carb. Huh. The caesar turned out well, based the dressing on a recipe from one of my favourite chef's - Michael Smith (Food Network, lives in PEI). Find his recipe here.  The glass of red in this case was "Apothic Red", from California. One of SO's favourite these days. All in all, a good start to the grilling season.

Next time: really, probably don't need the garlic bread

Me: 9/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: 8/10