It’s the “So Close So Easy Sweepstakes” sponsored by Fox Sports Radio, Blue Rhino (you know, the propane people) and the Kansas City Steak Company.

Basically, you send them your contact info for a chance to win this awesome stuff:

• Gas grill
• Blue Rhino propane
• $500 Kansas City Steaks gift certificate
• Prize package from Fox Sports Radio

You can go here for all the particulars on how to enter. You don’t have to buy anything, but send in your entry by July 19th or you’re out of luck!!

If YOU win (and that means I don’t) you HAVE to let me know so you can gloat and I can secretly pierce little kabobs into your skull in my mind congratulate you.

May the best enter-er win!!!

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What could make it better, you ask?

Thanks for asking. Well, I had some steaks delivered right to our door here and they weren’t just any steaks. Oh, no. These were strip steaks in an onion and garlic rub.

My photo doesn’t do it justice, but see those little green flecks of heaven on the side of that luscious slice of beef? The aroma of oniony goodness while these babies were grilling was almost too much to bear.

I wanted to dive right into that first steak and not wait for anyone else. But I held myself back. And the wait was worth it.

These were really wonderful and a nice departure from the usual flavoring I use.

Here’s where I ordered these. Go get you some.

Just don’t expect the cool ocean breeze to come in the package. They haven’t figured out a way to UPS that yet.

And if they had . . . you’d better believe I would have already purchased the entire supply.

Bon appetit!

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And what did we serve to celebrate the occasion?

Why, steak of course!!!

T-bones and boneless ribeyes crowded the grill. (Check out that big one there in front.)

We sat around the dining room table, laughed, drank wine and caught up. Just like it should be.

We even made t-shirts for the occasion. But I’ll spare you those cheesy shots.

This is the plate ready to head to the table — spatula and all.

That’s a lot of beef.

My hubby was thankful everyone came (well, it WAS his side’s reunion after all) but moreso because he had leftover steaks for the next 3 days.

Score.

That’s what summer days are all about at our house!

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We screeched up to our condo here in Florida just as the fireworks were beginning. We were happy to have made it after driving ALL day.

Michael Jackson tunes had been on the iPod the ENTIRE 10-hour drive. My 5-year-old began requesting “Dirty Diana” after a while. And when the kids started to fuss and fight they’d say, “You better not ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something!’”

On top of the parking garage at the condo (classy, yes) the kids enjoyed the fireworks show for about 7 minutes, then I began to hear, “Mom, do we have any Popsicles? What about strawberries?”

Anything with water in it sounded good. Apparently, they were thirsty, hot and tired.

So inside we went.

Happy birthday, America!

We have so many great meals planned for the week: a roast with potatoes, the mini steakburgers and steaks I ordered, ground beef tacos — oh yeah, and some frozen pizzas thrown in for good measure.

It’s always a good time sharing good food with the people you love. And here in what we think is the most gorgeous place on earth it can’t get any better.

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My gift to you in celebration of this day is the gift of food. Well, a recipe, actually.

And I am loving this recipe! It’s a kaboby-meatballish combo (if you ask me) and I LOVE that it uses ground beef.

The light lemongrass is perfect for hot, hot July weather, too!

Enjoy it under the firecrackers tonight!!!!!!!!!!!

Lemongrass Ground Beef Skewers

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped lemon grass
• 1 onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat, and lightly oil the grate.
2. Place lemon grass, onion, and garlic in the container of an electric blender or food processor. Cover and blend or process until finely chopped, about 10 seconds. Scrape lemon grass mixture into a bowl, and stir in beef, salt, pepper, sugar, cornstarch, oyster sauce, and sesame oil.
3. Form meat mixture into 12 meatballs. Thread onto skewers.
4. Cook on the preheated grill until the meatballs are well done, about 7 minutes per side. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read 160 degrees F (70 degrees C).

Recipe and photo courtesy of allrecipes.com.

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We’re going to be grilling some steaks, too, this holiday. Try it and see what you think!

Steak Mediterranean

2. Grill steaks, covered with grill lid, over medium-high heat (350 to 400 degrees) about 8 to 10 minutes on each side, or until desired degree of doneness.

3. Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil for 3 minutes or until tender. Stir in tomatoes, broth, vinegar, sugar and oregano; bring to a boil. Add olives, capers and lemon zest; simmer until heated through.

4. To serve, arrange steaks on a serving platter; top with sauteed mixture and garnish with fresh parsley, if desired.

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In celebration of our country’s birthday, our family is making our annual pilgrimage to the beach. We’ll watch fireworks at night and eat way too much.

We can’t wait!

This 4th of July we’re having some mini steakburgers delivered to our condo so we can make sliders. We’ve never done it before. But how hard can it be?

Here’s what I’ve ordered . . .

Now, will my photos look as amazing as this? That remains to be seen . . . but I KNOW I can’t mess up the grilling on these babies.

What are you doing for July 4th???

Photo courtesy of KansasCitySteaks.com.

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What could be more fun than creating a meal this summer with the kids that the whole family will love?

Here’s her story — and her photo (you may drool now) . . .

Pizza with the Kids

So school’s out for summer where we are, and after a week at Nana’s house, my kids are back in town, and I am back in charge of their fun.  The first “official” day of summer was Monday, and I had great intentions of having my five and nine year olds make Objectives and Goals for the summer.  So it went great…. 

Surprisingly, nothing got resolved, so I have made my own projections of summer ideas and decided that one of the things we can do is work together to make some of our meals.  Somehow, even though it is often more work that way, at least I feel like they are a part of it and we are doing something useful and educational.  Plus I feel a little less like a servant to their needs and more like a developer of their potential as humans.

Although they both like to cook, I am sure that oftentimes they would like to just play with their new videogame system, and the big one can certainly entertain himself in his room with a stack of new books from the library.  But this is my plan!

One of the books I checked out is a giant cookbook, and we have made chocolate chip cookies and pizza together from this book.  I must say that the cookies were extraordinarily good, despite the fact that the only chips I had were the swirled white chocolate/ semi sweet chocolate ones (and I think they’re too sweet).  I even snuck a little healthiness into the cookies (which I am wont to do), by substituting King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour for part of the all purpose flour called for in the recipe.  The book we got was Baking Illustrated, The Practical Kitchen Companion for the Home Baker by the editors of Cooks Illustrated Magazine and the recipe was for Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip cookies.  The interesting thing about the book is that it has a little essay, for want of a better word, before each recipe, detailing how it is they came to it.  What they started with, how they tweaked the recipe, what each small change did to the final outcome. 

So my nine year old read the essay, which is kind of a description of the scientific method, when I think of it.  It explained why they used melted butter instead of whole butter, the ratio of brown to white sugar they used, and so forth.  The same basic ingredients as the standard back of the package recipe, but the ratios were tweaked a little, and I must say that they were some tasty, good looking cookies.  So I can call this a science lesson, too, right?

Then last night, we made pizza together.  My big boy helped me make the dough, measuring ingredients and turning on the standing mixer.  He also shaped the finished dough into a ball and helped make the pizza crust.  I taught him how to dice an onion, which he then sautéed with the sausage and ground beef topping.  The five year old helped us top the pizza and made sure we made one with her favorite toppings (olives!).  They were some gorgeous looking pizzas, despite the fact that I do not have a pizza stone in my oven and I do have the worlds’ worst oven to work with.  It is totally unreliable, as far as temperature goes, and has no insulation, which means that in the Houston summer, it is insane to make pizza.  Insane but good.  It must have been 125° in the kitchen by the time we were done – the oven was preheated to 500° for 30 minutes, and I am telling you our oven has no insulation on it – you could fry an egg on the top of it.  So my new plan for pizza making in the summer is to get another pizza stone (I had one for years and just haven’t replaced it after it cracked) and put it on the grill, where I will get it fiery hot, by preheating, then put the pizza on top and let it cook with the top on the grill for 6-10 minutes.  I have tried doing pizza right on the grill grate, but I am yet to end up with a satisfactory product.  The bottom crust gets too burned for my taste, and I end up cutting it off, which is not easy, nor pretty.

The picture of the pizza in the cookbook (which has gorgeous illustrations and pictures) was of a much thinner crust than we were able to accomplish.  This is something we’ll have to practice technique on, but this is definitely the best pizza we have ever made at home.  It was tasty, the crust was delicious if not perfectly round.  Thinner crust is more popular with my family, particularly my husband, so we will have to get our crust shaping technique down to more of a science.  The one thing I really noticed besides its yumminess is that I did not notice all of the salt that I get from takeout pizza.  Ever notice that an hour or so after takeout pizza, you are so thirsty you can hardly stand it?  Our pizza had kind of the opposite issue.  I almost wish it had a little more salt – I will probably add a titch more to the dough recipe next time, and maybe go with a non-organic mozzarella which may have made it a little bland.  All said, a pretty good week in cooking school ala Mom.

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Check out what she has to say!

Leftover Steak Chalupas

When I cook, I like to cook green and thriftily.  Healthy, conscious of our environment, not wasteful of food or energy resources (or my own efforts.)  So if I am firing up the grill, I like to make sure that I am using most of the square footage (square inchage, to be exact…) of the heated grill grate.  Often times we end up with leftovers, which just happens to make the next nights’ dinner easier, right?  Who can argue with that? 

This week we had t-bone steaks from the grill one night, standard meal with baked potato and salad.  I had purchased an extra one, knowing exactly how much would fit on our grill.  The one very large t-bone that I knew was going to be leftover from our meal I took off the grill a little early – a little rare for our liking, because I knew it was going to be heated up when it made an appearance later in the week.

Two nights later, when time was short and everyone was hungry, I just had to heat up some chalupa shells in the oven for 5 minutes, heat up some black beans with salsa in the microwave and toss together a quick Mexican-inspired salad to make a tasty treat.  I did sauté some onions, and would have added a bell pepper if I had had one handy, then while they were cooking I sliced up that leftover steak and added it to the hot skillet just for a second to warm up the meat. 

Dena here again. I always marvel at how Sandy (and so many of you!) can think outside the box. I love the standards, but I can easily get stuck making the same things over and over again.

Boring, right?

That’s why I need this blog. And Sandy. And you. To help me keep it fresh and interesting around here.

Thanks for the ideas!!

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I got a really great response with some fantastic ideas and I wanted to make sure you saw it. I’ve included the ”meat” of the comment here (yes, pun intended!): 

A leftover piece of steak like that wouldn’t be all that much trouble to warm back up, but it’s really more fun to think outside of the box. From your photo I see a couple of quick and easy dishes.

1.) Steak fajitas – warm the steak back up while sauteing onions and peppers
2.) Steak salad with some sort of blue cheese, chipotle, southwestern, name your favorite dressing
3.) If it’s a tender cut, you could slice it very thin and place it into some beef gravy or drippings, warming it back up and placing it into a sandwich. French dip? Hot beef sandwich?
4.) Steak and eggs?
5.) Steak quesadilla
6.) Hash

So, thank you, friend! I LOVE these ideas — especially the steak quesadilla and hash. Good thoughts!

Check out Wolfgang Puck’s steak quesadillas here . . .

Don’t these look exquisite? Wolfgang apparently thinks you’re on to something here.

Keep your ideas coming and I’ll share them with EVERYONE!

Photo courtesy of FoodNetwork.com.

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