Italian Steak and Bread Salad (Woman's Day Monthly Menu)

Today is the first day of Woman's Day Month, where I am following the posted monthly menu in Woman's Day magazine. I want to see if planning a whole month of cooking really is more convenient, and if it saves money. Too read more, see here.

Today's recipe is for Italian Steak and Bread Salad with a side of grilled corn on the cob.


Italian Steak and Bread Salad
http://www.womansday.com/Recipes/Italian-Steak-and-Bread-Salad

* Active Time: 7 minutes
* Total Time: 15 minutes


Recipe Ingredients
o 12-oz 3⁄4-in.-thick sirloin steak
o 1⁄2 a 1-lb loaf French bread, split
o Garlic-flavor cooking spray <-- replaced this with minced garlic
o 1⁄2 tsp salt
o 1⁄2 tsp pepper
o 2 cups ripe tomato chunks
o 2 bags (6 oz each) baby spinach trio (baby spinach, arugula and carrots), or baby spinach
o 1⁄2 cup sliced onion
o 1⁄2 cup crumbled blue cheese - I left this out, I don't like blue cheese
o 1⁄2 cup olive oil (I just used this to saute the onions)


Recipe Preparation

1. Heat outdoor grill or stovetop ridged grill pan. Coat steak and cut surfaces of bread with garlic spray; sprinkle with salt and pepper.

2. Grill steak, turning once, 6 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted from side to middle registers 155°F. Remove to a cutting board, cover loosely with foil and let rest. (Temperature of steak will continue to rise to 160°F for medium doneness.)

3. Meanwhile, grill bread, cut sides down, 2 minutes, or until lightly toasted.

4. Cut bread in chunks; thinly slice steak. Combine in a bowl with remaining ingredients; toss to mix.

My Experience:
The Process-
Well I learned 5 minutes before I was about to start grilling that the barbecue was out of propane so I couldn't use it.  This was disappointing but I decided to just cook the steak on the George Foreman grill and boil the corn instead of grilling it.
Also, the Italian bread I used was a bake it yourself type thing and came out really hard on the outside and soft on the inside.  Since i don't like hard bread, I decided it was not suitable to put in the salad so I served it on the side instead.
The entire cooking process took me a little under 30 minutes, unlike the noted 15 minutes stated in the recipe.  This probably had to do with the fact that I was using frozen spinach I had to boil, and that I decided to saute the oinions.

Also, the corn I had got awhile ago, had shriveled up and did not taste very good, so i was a little bummed about that.  I guess i should have bought more at the grocery store yesterday but I thought the other corn was still good.

One nice bonus however, was that the husband came home early from work so he helped me cut up the steak and pick the tomatoes from the garden.  He could tell I was not in a super great mood today and his help made a world of difference, and now I feel much better.

The Result-

Despite the hard bread and shriveled corn, it was a really good meal!  I was a little apprehensive about cutting up such a nice looking steak and mixing it into a messy salad but the salad was really delicious!  I used spinach and arugula combined instead of the trio mix suggested in the recipe.  It felt so rewarding to have a dinner with fresh greens and tomatoes and onions and that I made it on my own (with a little help from the husband).  I'm actually glad that I left out the bread because I think the salad tasted better that way.  I don't like croutons on my salad, and the thought of the bread getting soggy in it and ruining the fresh tastes and crunchiness of other things makes me go "bleh".

So I give the recipe itself 3 stars because I don't think it would be as good if it had been prepared exactly as stated, but today's dinner 4 stars!  If you take the bread out of the salad I'm sure it will be great for you, too!

The husband also thought the meal was really, very good, and it's rare to get such a descriptive compliment on a meal from him so I think he enjoyed it as well.  Although, I'm pretty sure when steak is involved it would be incredibly difficult to displease the man.

Woman's Day Monthly Menus Month!

I know, shame on me, I didn't post a recipe today.  Well, in case you care the little one is teething and maybe cranky just from us traveling so much, and has been screaming ALL. DAY. LONG.  In addition, Husband didn't get home from work until 8pm and I had to go grocery shopping, and we still had leftover pork so I figured he could make something with that when he got home.  On top of this, Little One pulled down my favorite floor lamp and it of course shattered all over the floor.  I'm totally bummed about it, so let's just move on to better things... I am very excited for tomorrow!  Why? Because tomorrow is September 1st and the start of Woman's Day Month!

In between my child screaming and changing diapers I was able to organize the monthly menu for September and make a shopping list.  Turns out the local grocery store had some really great deals (thank you, Labor Day) and I was very excited that I got some great sirloin steaks (7 total) for right around $10.00 and a bunch of other things for a fairly good price.

So I did rearrange the original Woman's Day September meal plan to suit my own needs (switched slow cooker recipes to the day I work, took out foods we don't like, are allergic to, etc.,) but I think it is a solid meal plan and will work out well for our family.  Here is a peek at September's recipe plan- note there aren't really any weekend recipes because I don't post on weekends:

(click to enlarge)

I went ahead and bought the groceries I would need for the next 2 weeks and all of the meat for the entire month since it was really greatly priced and should keep just fine.  The total I spent was right around $50.00 which I don't think is bad at all.  The Husband was fairly impressed but he has a tendency to overspend at the grocery store... I won't get into that.  Anyway, I adapted the grocery list to my needs since I rearranged the monthly meal plan but here is Woman's Day down loadable grocery list if you're interested click here.  I plan on posting at the end of the month how much I spent total and if I think the meal planning helped save money.

So far, I am really liking this planning in advance thing.  The fact that I went grocery shopping means I don't need to search for recipes based on the ingredients that I have, and I am also sticking to a budget.  So that means, so far, so good, now I just need to make sure I don't botch the recipes!

See you all tomorrow for our first September recipe!

Dessert Recipe! No Bake Rocky Road Cookies

I was in the mood for something sweet today but didn't want to heat up the house by running the oven. No bake cookies = the perfect solution!

I pulled this recipe off of cooks.com. I love going there for quick recipes, but if you are wanting a good, no mistakes recipe I would go to allrecipes.com which allows users to review the recipes. The reviews are incredibly helpful and offer awesome suggestions to improve the recipe.

Anyway here is the original recipe for the cookies:

NO - BAKE ROCKY ROAD COOKIES
Ingredients-
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 c. (1 stick) butter
1/2 c. evaporated milk
1 c. marshmallows
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
3 c. quick cooking oats
1/2 c. chopped nuts <-- I left these out, I'm not a huge fan of nuts so we never have them in the house

Directions-
In saucepan, combine sugar, cocoa, butter and evaporated milk. Bring mixture to boil; boil 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in marshmallows and vanilla. Add oats and nuts. Stir until combined. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper lined baking sheets. Let cookies cool. Store in covered container in refrigerator.
 
The Review:

I actually thought these were a little sweet. Which is a shocker because I am all about sweets! I think they would have been perfect if I had done 1 1/3 cup sugar and added like a 1/4 cup of peanut butter. Either way though, they did satisfy my chocolate cookie craving and took a total of about 15 minutes. Not bad.

Pulled Pork

Well, we are officially back from our vacation which means back to the blog. The husband's mom used to own a restaurant and is a great cook, so needless to say we were spoiled all of last week. Hopefully the husband can readjust to my cooking which doesn't hold a candle to my mother-in-laws.

Anyway, today I decided to make the pulled pork that's been chilling (literally!) in our fridge for awhile. This was incredibly easy and quick. Perfect since I had to work today.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches
prep: under 30 minutes

Ingredients:
Pre-packaged pulled pork
Barbecue sauce
Bread

Directions:
Boil water and add the pulled pork in the bag in the boiling water. Let boil about 15 minutes, drain and open package into pot. Pull apart the pork with a fork and add your barbecue sauce.
Make into sandwiches, or use it for whatever really, tacos, nachos, anything!

The Verdict:
My experience-
This was really good and easy to make. I'm not sure how many different ways you can buy pulled pork but the one I got was from Costco and just very easy in a packaged bag with clear instructions.

Dinner is Served-
We both enjoyed this and it was super easy and quick. Four stars from us!

German Pancakes

I hope you all enjoyed Momo's recipe for mac 'n' cheese the other day. She has graciously contributed yet another fantastic recipe for you all today.

German pan cakes

ATTENTION: I advise you to use the measurements that are NOT in cups because I'm not sure how exact the conversion is and you need to be fairly adequate for this recipe.

For two people you need:

375ml milk (apprx. 1.5 cups)
150g flour (little more than 0.5 cup)
2 eggs
salt

Mix flour, milk, eggs and a bit of salt. Let it rest for at least half an hour.
Put some sunflower oil into a frying pan and let it heat up properly. Scoop some of the dough into the pan and let it bake until the edges are brownish. Then turn the cake over and let the other side bake.
When the whole thing turned a brown-golden color, put it on a plate and get to the next scoop of dough.
Don't forget to refresh the oil in your pan and please be careful because hot oil tends to attack ;o)
The first pan cake (or as they are properly called, Plinse) will take the longest (maybe three or four minutes) and everything after that should take only around two minutes to finish.

Of course you can vary them by putting slices of apple or any other fruit or raisins into the pan along with the dough.

You can put maple syrup on top of them - or ham, cheese, jam, nutella, plain sugar or salt. since there's no sugar in the dough to begin with, you can do pretty much whatever you want with the end product.
I usually eat some with some kind of topping and the rest stays plain. They even taste good when they're cold. You can cut them into pieces, roll them, rip them ... GO WILD!

Boat Food

In honor of me being in Alaska this week (which probably explains all the guest posts to you now), I have decided to share with you not so much a recipe but a cooking method.
My husband grew up in a very small town in Alaska. His dad is a commercial fisherman. In our newlywed days when we didn't know how to buy groceries for just the two of us, or what to make for us, many of our evenings we had what my husband likes to call "boat food".
Boat food is what they would eat while out fishing. It basically means you scan the cupboards for whatever you've got (usually canned or boxed), throw it all together, and eat it! Think of it like a stove top casserole I suppose.

Anyway, boat food can be a variety of things but today I am going to give you a general recipe to give you an idea. You can use the same technique to use up leftovers without it being the same meal as the night before.

Boat Food
prep: minimal

Ingredients
box of spaghetti, macaroni, whatever you have!
1 can creamed corn
1 can peas
1 can cream of chicken soup

Directions
Boil pasta, add in other ingredients. Cook until warm, serve!

You can serve this with some bread and butter if you have it. It's a fast, easy thing to do when you're trying to cook with your food storage or just trying to avoid going to the grocery store.

The Review
Boat food usually is pretty good, as long as you don't get carried away and add the wrong things. Which brings me to another cooking lesson- Don't Get Carried Away. When you're cooking, if you're confident you may feel comfortable changing up the recipe, adding to it and making it your own. Which I think is a beautiful thing and something I am working towards. But if you are too confident, you may mess up and go overboard, maybe put too much seasoning, or two items that won't go well together. With boat food, vegetables will pretty much always compliment each other and mix well together but different kinds of meat won't always go well together, nor will soups or veggies with fruit so just be careful.

Overall this should work-out well for you and as long as you are not using raw meat, the only cooking time is just as long as it takes to warm up the food. It's not as pretty on the plate as if you were to make each thing separate, but it is a lot faster to make and it all ends up in the same place anyway. For ease of cooking and a pretty good taste it gets **** but loses a star for "plate appeal".

Homemade Mac N Cheese

Today's recipe for Mac 'n' Cheese comes from Momo. She blogs about some of her favorite things, movies, TV shows, some pop culture stuff. I thoroughly enjoy reading her blog, maybe it is something you can check out while your mac 'n' cheese is cooking.

Homemade mac'n'cheese

You need:

macaroni (d'uh)
ham
cheese
milk
eggs
salt and pepper

What you have to do:

Cook the macaroni. Cut the ham into squares and start frying it lightly. Mix the milk and eggs (for one person you'll need just a cup or two of milk and maybe one or two eggs) and flavour them any way you like with salt and pepper.

As soon as the macaroni are done, drain them well and put them into the frying pan where the ham should be looking good by now. Add your milk and eggs and stir well. Let the whole thing fry a little and add some cheese.

When the egg is done, turn off the stove and dig in!

Now for some variation:

The recipe as described is the easiest version. I started changing it long ago. You can of course use different meat or none at all. I sometimes add tomatoes or any other kind of vegetable. I usually use a lot of curry instead of pepper. Mushrooms go well with this, too. Basically you can use whatever leftovers you have or whatever tickles your fancy. The basic recipe is always the same: macaroni, eggs, milk and as many cheese as you like.

I'm sorry I got no picture of this but it looks different every time anyways. It's something that's easy and fast to make and that always tastes good (even when it's cold!).