Sesame Beef Wraps

We have become quite a fan of "Asian inspired" foods.  Toasted Sesame Oil is one of my new favorite ingredients forever. I LOVE the way it smells and tastes...worth every cent.

So when I saw this recipe (I think on Pinterest but I am not totally positive), I knew I had to try it.

I happened to have some flank steak in the freezer, not enough to make a steak dinner but enough for a meal like this. So I pulled it out for this recipe.

And it was good stuff.

We will have this again (though not too often; I can't afford flank steak very often).

Ingredients:
2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp sugar

2 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp sesame oil (YUM!)

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp rice vinegar

1 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Freshly ground black peppercorns

1 lb flank steak cut thinly against the grain

oil

Butter lettuce leaves (I had a hard tine finding them...I had to buy a LIVE lettuce plant from the grocery store, roots intact. That being said, these are great leaves for wraps!)

Optional toppings:  Shredded carrots, brown rice (cooked), green onions, etc.

Sauce ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 tsp sugar

3 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp rice vinegar

1/2 tsp sriracha chile sauce (I omitted due to food issues here)

1 tsp sesame oil

1 Tbsp green onion, chopped

1/2 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds

1 Tbsp water

Note:  Since many of the marinade ingredients AND the sauce ingredients are the same or similar, I would make them both at the same time. I didn't pay attention to that part when I made it. :)

Directions:
Mix together the garlic, sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, rice vinegar, sesame seeds, and peppercorn.  Pour into a large ziplock bag and add the flank steak. Refrigerate 1-3 hours (or longer if needed).  Like I said above, it would make sense to go ahead and mix the sauce ingredients and refrigerate until needed.

 When ready to cook, heat about 1/2 Tbsp oil in a large skillet.  Put about half the meat in the skillet and brown. 

Once it cooked through, place that meat in a serving dish.

Add about 1/2 Tbsp more oil to the skillet and cook the remaining meat.

I just put all of the foods on the table and let the family build their own. Some don't like lettuce, so they just put the meat on top of rice. I put some rice on lettuce then added the meat and carrots and dipped in the sauce. 

Very quick, very good!

Reba

Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin

I have really been trying to stick with our Grocery Challenge for the month.  And that has meant eating a little simpler and a little cheaper. But last week we did splurge on one meal. 

Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin.

I probably should have gone with something cheaper. 

And by the last week of January when I have very little to spend, I will really wish that.

But what is done is done.

I will say that it was GOOD stuff.

And once January is over, I WILL make this again. :)

This is another Pinterest recipe. 

Like I said, not cheap.

But oh, so good.

(And the good news is there were leftovers so we had lunch the next day too :)

Ingredients:
Pork Tenderloin (around 3 pounds...I used the Farmland Pork Loin, 2 in a package.  The original recipe cut them, I just kept them in 2 pieces)

1 lb bacon (I didn't quite have a whole package, so mine was more like 3/4 a package which was enough)

3/4 cup soy sauce (I would probably reduce this to 1/2 cup in the future)

1 Tbsp minced onion

1/2 tsp garlic salt (I did use garlic salt but probably would use garlic powder in the future. Pork and bacon doesn't need any extra salt :)

1 Tbsp white vinegar

1/4 tsp salt

dash of pepper (I used the peppercorn grinder)

3/4 cups brown sugar (I actually reduced that to 1/2 which was plenty to me)

Directions:
Wrap bacon around pork and place in a baking dish.

Poke holes in the pork.  I just used a knife and stabbed holes all over the meat.

Mix the remaining ingredients and pour over the meat.

Cover and refrigerate for 2-3 hours (or longer).  I flipped the meat a couple times to make sure it was all in the juices at some point.

The original recipe had this bake for 2-3 hours at 300.  However, I needed to cook potatoes and bake some bread, all at 400 degrees. So I cooked this for about 50 minutes to an hour at 400.  After about 40 minutes, a little bit of the bacon was getting dark so I covered the meat with foil and moved it down a rack.

After about 50 minutes, I checked the temperature. It was between 140-150.  I then pulled it out and let it rest for about 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

We had this with fingerling potatoes, honey yeast rolls (new recipe), and black-eye peas.

And I enjoyed each and every bite.

Yum.

Happy cooking!

Reba

Garlic and Herb Grilled Shrimp

On Labor Day, I decided to try several grilling recipes I had found via Pinterest.  So we had a grilled food smorgasbord...steak, chicken, and two versions of grilled shrimp.  All were good, so I have a few recipes to share.  If only I had the energy to share them all tonight!

Instead, I will start with one and slowly work my way through the others in the next week or so.

One shrimp recipe I tried is "grilled garlic and herb shrimp".

I am sure you have figured out, I have yet to meet a shrimp I didn't like.

So if you aren't a shrimp lover, come back in a few days. I will share something new.

But if you like shrimp, this is a recipe you will probably want to try.

Yum.

Of course, we grilled it (since it was "grilled" shrimp and all but I am thinking baking it in the fall/winter wouldn't be a bad thing either.  I may have to try that and let you know.

Ingredients:
2 lbs large shrimp (peeled and deveined)
2 tsp paprika
2 Tbsp freshly minced garlic (I just minced a couple cloves)
2 tsp Italian seasoning (I like the kind you can actually grind)
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice (or if you are like me, bottled lemon juice because I forgot to buy a lemon...)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp dried basil
2 tbsp brown sugar

Directions: 
Whisk all of the ingredients (except for the shrimp) in a bowl. Or in my case, a Ziplock bag. 

Add in the shrimp.

Toss evenly to coat.

Refrigerate for at least two hours, turning once.

Preheat grill to medium heat.

The original directions recommended oiling the grill grate. I am pretty sure my husband didn't do that. 

Grill shrimp (discard the marinade) for 5-6 minutes or until shrimp is opaque in the center. (We skewered ours)

Enjoy!

Pork Tenderloin With a Pan Sauce

I am behind on recipes.  :(  It has been a really hectic week.

Anywho...

Recently on Pinterest, I found a recipe that looked SOOOO good.  Or maybe it was the picture that looked so good. :)  Either way, I just had to try it.

Pork Tenderloin with Pan Sauce.

So a couple weeks ago, I decided to give it a try.

And it was just as good as I hoped it would be.

I followed the original recipe fairly closely with just a few minor changes after reading some of the comments.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup olive oil

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

juice from one lemon

1 or 2 tbsp Worcestershire

1-2 tbsp fresh parsley, finally chopped

2 tsp dry mustard

freshly ground pepper (to taste)

4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced (if your grocery store has herb "singles", it is a great place to get already peeled cloves)

1 lb pork tenderloin (okay, mine was more like two so I upped my ingredients)

Pan Sauce:
Scrapings from pork tenderloin

1/2 cup chicken broth

2-3 tbsp pork marinade

1-2 tsp butter

Directions:
Combine all the ingredients from the first list (minus the pork tenderloin).  Reserve 2-3 tbsp for later use.

Place the pork tenderloin in the marinade in a large ziplock bag and marinate in the fridge for 3-4 hours.

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.

In a hot skillet, sear the pork tenderloin on medium high heat for 2-3 minutes per side.

Place in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

After reading some comments, I put this in a large baking pan.  Then I poured the marinade over it so it cooked in the marinade.

I am not sure if that is considered safe or not.

My thinking was that if the pork is going to cook any bad germs out, the marinade will too.

My main goal was to keep the pork moist while it was cooking.  I removed the pork from the marinade before serving.

Like I said, I was going on the advice of some of the commenters.

Nobody got sick, so I would probably do it again that way. :)

Oh, latebreaking news...one commenter said that she had read to boil the marinade for about 5 minutes and it would be good to go.  Take that for what it is worth. :)

Or just cook it without the marinade and avoid all of these questions and concerns I have. That is what I may do next time if I don't want to live life on the edge. :)

Sorry for the rambling.  It is late and I am really tired.

So toward the end of the cooking time (start checking it around 30 minutes so it doesn't dry out), get the pan sauce ready. 

Add the chicken broth to the skillet, scraping up any pork tenderloin that might be left in the skillet from earlier.

Add the reserved marinade and bring to a boil.  Boil for about 2-3 minutes.

Add the butter. Remove from heat and stir the sauce, letting the butter melt.

Pour over the pork tenderloin.

Enjoy!

We ate ours with potatoes and black eye peas. Yum.

Reba

Steak Marinade

I have one marinade for steaks/pork chops that I like to use.  But I am always looking for others to try.

Recently I had some sirloin steaks to prepare for grilling. I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with them.

My cousin P. sent me a recipe for a steak marinade.

It was easy and quick to put together.

And it sounded good.

Works for me!

Ingredients (for 2-4 steaks)

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ginger
2 Tbsp oil (I used my canola blend)

Directions
Mix together the ingredients and marinate the steaks for at least 4 hours before grilling.  (Do watch for flare ups while grilling)

I just put all of the ingredients in a large ziplock and put the meat in, then I refrigerated it for the day.  I turned the bag at one point just to make sure all of the meat was getting the "juices".

I really liked it.  It had a good flavor but was subtle (not overpowering).

Thanks to my cousin for sharing the recipe!

Reba

Grill(less) Chicken Tenderloins

I needed a good chicken recipe for tonight.  I have several I thought about making but I was in the mood to try something new.  So I decided to give this recipe a try.

I mean, it basically has four ingredients.

Four.

How can you go wrong with four ingredients?

I made this up this morning, threw it all in a ziplock bag and let it marinate until this evening.

It took about 40 minutes to cook but didn't require a lot of attention so it gave me a chance to make my mashed potatoes and heat up some rolls. I think this would be really good with rice too.

You will notice mine is "saucier" than the original recipe (site above).

I used more chicken so I double the marinade recipe which was probably too much. However, I really liked the sauce even though I didn't get the "grilled" look that the original chef did.  I poured some over my mashed potatoes.  So I am not sure I would do it much differently.

I will definitely be throwing this into our recipe rotation.  I think when school is in session, this will be a good one to make up in the morning, refrigerate to marinate, then cook when I get home.  It was easy and tasty.

Ingredients:
Boneless, skinless chicken tenderloins (I used about 12 tenderloins) or chicken breasts cut into strips...I just think tenderloins are easier to use

1 bottle of Zesty Italian dressing (the recipe calls for 1 cup which is about half the bottle...I doubled it)

2 tsp (or double if you are me :) lemon or lime juice (I used lemon because that is what I had on hand)

3 tsp honey (or double if you are me :)

Directions:
Combine all of the ingredients in a gallon ziplock bag.

Refrigerate for at least an hour.

When you are ready to cook, pour the entire contents into a large skillet.

Cook over medium heat. 

I flipped the chicken occasionally and stirred around the juices.

At first it seems really watery.

But it does thicken as it heats.

Toward the end, I kicked the temperature up a bit to a medium high since I had so much sauce.

After about 40 minutes, it should be really thick.  Really push the chicken into that thickened sauce.

It almost has a sweet barbecue taste.

Yum.

Enjoy!

Reba

Marinade for Pork Chops or Steak

This recipe came from my mom's recipe collection. It is easy to mix up and should be made ahead since it is a marinade and all. It is good on both pork and steak, but Mark will tell you that pork is his top choice for it...

Ingredients:
1/3 cup white vinegar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp minced onion
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp black powder


Directions:
Blend ingredients together. (I actually use a blender to make sure everything blends together well)

Pour marinade over meat (we used boneless pork chops tonight) in a shallow dish or a gallon ziplock bag. Refrigerate. For pork, marinate for 24 hours. For steaks, marinate for at least 12 hours.

When you are ready to grill, remove the meat from the marinade. Discard the remaining marinade.

Enjoy!



Edited 4/21/12 Here are some steaks grilling after soaking up this marinade all day. It was yummy. :)

Flank Steak

Several years ago, we visited my sister in Kansas. She served me this recipe for the first time and it quickly became a family favorite. We don't have it as often as I would like but when we do, we enjoy it whole-heartedly!

Please disregard the lighting in this pic...it really is much yummier than it photographs.

Flank Steak:
Take a 2 lb flank steak. Score it diagonally on both sides. Rub dry mustard and black pepper into each side. (I have grown to love my "pepper grinder"...it is my new favorite toy.)

Cut the flank steak into strips against the grain (perpendicular).

Place in a shallow bowl or a ziplock bag (that is what I use).

Pour vegetable oil, soy sauce, and chopped green onion over the steak. I have no exact measurement. I just pour until at least part of the steak is covered. :)

Refrigerate overnight.

I usually try to flip my bag around to make sure it all gets the oil marinade. Usually. If I remember.

The next night, grill. I can't tell you how to grill since I have NO clue how to operate the grill. That is my husband's job. Just grill until it looks the way you like it. For us that is very little pink.

Enjoy!

We typically eat ours with black eyed peas, fried potatoes (recipe coming soon), bread (Katie's bread :), and sometimes a salad.

I didn't say it was healthy.

But it sure is yummy!

Happy cooking,
Reba
PS I have prepared it the morning of and it works. But it is much more tender and flavorful if you prepare it the night before.