Grilled steak with Cilantro pesto/sauce served over Arroz Rojo rice

As we all know, I am a loyal viewer of the television show, The Chew. After watching today's episode of Budget Friendly Mexican Meals, I automatically wanted to drive to the nearest Mexican restaurant and order my usual chicken burrito and margarita. However, I know I was ready for a home cooked meal, and I am pretty sure Jimmy was too. Soooo, why not make my own Mexican food from scratch?! How hard could it be? For the record, not very hard. :)

Mexican for me just hits the spot. I can eat it any day, hour, morning,  afternoon, or night. Even fourth meal. However, pulling off a scrumptions Mexican meal from scratch and not using canned refried beans or the Knorr spanish rice package is a big accomplishment in itself for me. So when I was roaming IGA for some inspiration, I decided to make the Arroz Rojo rice recipe I saw on TV today. They said on the show that you can pair any meat with the rice and it will be good. I decided to go with a skirt like steak (I forget the name of the meat honestly) but it was in a shape of a tri tip, but was thin. Come to think of it, I think the work Tri was in the name of the meat. Perhaps, Tri Steak? Who cares!!! You can pair this rice with chicken, pork, a scrumptious steak, buffalo testicals, WHATEVER, and I am sure it will be fantastic. The thing I loved about Chef Marcella's Arroz Rojo recipe, was that it contained cilantro. I felt that I can get most of my money by using it not only in the rice, but in a pesto/sauce as well. So besides following the Arroz Rojo recipe, I competley winged the rest. Just to let you know, it turned out UH-MAZING! Not to toot my own horn or anything....


Click here for Arroz Rojo recipe

The recipe called for a serrano chili, but I just used a jalapeno instead. Remember, its ok to "color outside the lines" when you are cooking. ;)


For my Cilantro Pesto, I did the following:

About 1 cup of cilantro
A little bit of olive oil
Two cloves of garlics-crushed
Roughly a tablespoon of lemon juice (can do lime instead)
Some parmesan cheese
A few canellini beans (pine nuts, walnuts, cashews are usually the norm)

A pesto is very versatile, and can be made several different ways. A typical pesto contains basil, olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese, and pine nuts. for mine, I changed it up  a bit and  did cilantro, and I did not have any kind of nuts in my pantry, so I went with beans. You just need something to bind the liquid so it was be more pasty instead of liquidly. The beans also add some protein as well :) I do not own a a food processor so I made my pesto in a blender. I may have added a wee bit too much olive oil so it was on the fence between a pesto and sauce, but nonetheless, it was full of flavor and I cant believe I actually made it. You have got to try it!

With the steak, I did not feel like grilling on the grill, so I put the broiler on high, and cooked the steak about five minutes on eat side and seasoned with salt and pepper.


When the dinner was finished, and we had a chance to eat, it was amazing. The rice could have been cooked longer, but on my defense, the rice mixture was the same texture whenever you make the spanish rice out of the bag and/or when I make my risotto. So naturally, I thought it was done. The rice was spicy, but delicious. the cilantro sauce was full of flavor and amazing, and the steak was good, but probably would have been better on the grill.

Overall, I would rate this a 9/10. Jimmy rated the same way. I will definitely make this again, and next time, I will make margaritas :)

Balsamic Marinated Steak with Steak House Salad

I got this recipe off of The Chew's website. This looked really good, and honestly, I decided to make this on the spur of the moment. Instead of typing their whole recipe, I will just leave a link to their website and you can print it off if you wish!

Click Here for the Recipe


so the recipe calls for flank steak, and it is definitely healthier, but when I went to the grocery store they did not have flank steak so I went with a tri Tip. I go to to this grocery store called IGA. I had no idea what IGA was until they opened up literally right outside my neighborhood. It is so convenient; I can put my daughter in a stroller and just walk to it without getting run over by a car. Its perfect. BUT... they do not have makeup, certain medicines, etc. However, they have amazing prices on their produce and meat. Anyways, when I went to the store early in the morning, I talked to the butcher and since they did not have flank steak on hand, he convinced me to use a tri tip. It was good, but the marinade caramelizes quickly on the steak so my husband took it off early thinking it was ready, and it was not. We are not big grillers. We just got a grill so we are still learning :) The recipe was still good, and I love love love the blue cheese in the house salad, however, i would not go out of my way to make it unless I had no idea what to make  and some extra money to spend on some meat (ie: flank steak or tri tip). This recipe will work with many kinds of beef, but if you are watching the calories, go with the flank steak!

Poor Mans Steak

I am very lucky to have awesome in laws that have raised their own cattle to eat. We are always getting free ground beef, steaks, roasts, etc. I already forget the name of the steak, I think it's called cubbed steak. Which I don't understand because its not cubbed. It's like thin slices of steak. Anyways, it's good...that's all that matters, right?! Poor Man's Steak is so good, probably not the healthiest, but good! I always serve it with a side of pea risotto.

What you will need is:
A lb or so of cubbed steak, or thin steak
Flour and olive oil
An onion and bell pepper
Water
Salt and pepper

First things first is that you will need to slice the meat into little bites. My mother in law made it once with a nice portion of meat instead of bite size. Whatever floats your boat.
You will need to heat oil in a skillet and dredge the meat in flour. Once the meat is covered in flour, you will need to brown the meat. Next the onion and bell pepper needs to be cut in slices. In a casserole dish, you will combine the meat and vegetables with one cup of water and season the mixture with salt and pepper. Have your oven set to 400 and bake your meat mixture for about an onion until the vegetables are soft and the liquid has thickened. Halfway through I mixed the meat up and put it back in the oven.

The reason why I am being so vague with the directions is because cooking is not like a coloring book. In school you were taught to color within the lines. In cooking, if you color outside the lines, you can come up with something amazing. In this recipe you can add different seasonings to make if spicy, or add different vegetables. Maybe throw a little bourbon in it???

Fancy Taco Bowls

I made these a while back, and I totally forget how I came up with the recipe. Most likely I found it online. I would have made my taco bowls with ground turkey, but I had a pound of ground beef begging to be used.

As we all know, I LOVE cilantro. Love love love cilantro!! Ya, that's a lot of love :) this recipe has....you guessed it! Cilantro!
When you go to the store, you will need to purchase the following:

Ground beef, turkey, or chicken (whatever suits your fancy)
A jar of your favorite salsa
A mango or two
An avocado
White or brown rice (I used brown)
[drum roll please...]
CILANTRO


Cook your rice according to directions. When the rice is done cooking, you will want to mix the rice with the cilantro. Easy peasy!
Next you will want to ground you meat, drain it, and mix the jar of salsa with it.
You will also need to cut the mangos and avocado into little bite sizes.

If you wanted to, you could throw all the ingredients into a bowl, and you're done. When I am feeling fancy, that's not my style. What I did was super easy and you can do it too! What I did was I took the warm rice mixture, put it into a little bowl, packed it in , took a plate and coved the top of the bowl with the plate and flipped it over. That will mold the rice into the cute little round mold and all you have left to do is decorate it on top with the meat and fruit. Key is to use warm rice so it will hold its texture. Viola!