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Thursday, August 21, 2008

Whip It Up weeks 6 and 7: Steak Salad and Red Potato Oven Fries



Steak Salad base recipe here

My recipe:

Dressing:
In your big salad bowl, whisk together...
1/4 c Olive Oil
1/8 c Red Wine vinegar
Juice of 1 lime
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp Worchestershire sauce
1 tsp Honey
Salt & Pepper to taste
Place sliced leftover steak in dressing to marinade while you prepare the rest of the salad.

Salad:
1 bag of your fav mixed greens (I used baby romaine)
Thin-sliced red onion
1 tomato, cubed
Pimento-stuffed olives
1/4 c crumbled bacon
1/4 c crumbled blue cheese

Remove steak from dressing, add prepared salad ingredients except bacon and cheese, toss salad together until coated, top with steak, bacon, and cheese.

Red Potato Oven Fries recipe here

I pretty much followed that recipe exactly. Only change: I find EVOO burns too quickly for high temps, so I used light olive oil, which has a higher smoke point. I used salt, pepper, and the herbes de provence that I got while I was visiting my lovely sister Hannah IN FRANCE, so you know they're good. We also added some garlic powder.

The Results:

Was the recipe easy to follow?
Yes on both counts, very easy. No issues.

Did it taste good?
Oh yes, both were DELICIOUS.
The fries were rather dumb in that they stuck to the pan and didn't crisp up evenly, but I was excited to use my new mandolin again, and despite appearances, they tasted great.
The salad was even better than I expected, and was just super awesomely yummy! I have a theory I'm developing that lime juice makes everything taste better...I seriously love it lately. Started with guacamole, and have graduated all the way to salad dressing, and I must say it is the most amazingly wonderful citrus flavor I have ever tasted. I am in love. In addition to the lime, the olives added a nice tartness, the blue cheese added a nice sharpness, and the bacon added a wonderful crunch. Red onion is my other newfound love of the summer, and it worked very well in this salad too. Oh, and another important note is that soaking the leftover steak (so it was already cooked) in the citrus/vinegary dressing really made it tender and yummy, so definitely don't skip that part. And I did the whole drizzle-the-oil-while-whisking-vigorously thing, and successfully emulsified the oil I think, because it didn't separate, which was pretty cool too.

Would you make it again?
Yes to both, especially the salad, which was so amazing and would probably also work with other leftover meats. The potatoes I would probably go back to just cubing them instead of the fries, but I will most definitely use the herbes de provence again, that was really delish. And I thought the light olive oil did a good job giving some of that yummy olive oil flavor but without burning in the really hot oven.

Some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

The meal (I trust you can tell which is which):


The pics I owe you of the black bean burgers:



That's Paul's hand in the background, and just for fun, here's all of Paul after dinner tonight:

He loved the steak salad as much as I did. However, he thinks I'm a huge weirdo for randomly taking his picture at 10:30 PM. I just wanted to show you my dining room, and you can also see the awesomely retro wallpaper in the kitchen, which I think I nicely minimized by painting the dining room that nice deep yellow color.

For WIU Week 8: Key Lime Pie! I hope there's some left over for my dad, or he might never speak to us again.

3 comments:

  1. ohmygosh! your dining room is so CLEAN! did you tidy up before these pictures?

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  2. That is a great picture of Paul :)

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  3. If it's possible to call my dining room "clean," it would only be in comparison to the ridiculously cluttered and messy kitchen and living rooms.

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