Walk Widely. Eat Wisely. Live Gratefully.
The second best thing about St. Patrick’s Day is the day after. Assuming you paced yourself with the boiled dinner, there’s enough left for hash the next day. Cook it all up in a nonstick pan and top with an egg. If you’re worried about the calories, don’t forget: move more. Fortunately with yet another blizzard assaulting the city, we know exactly how we will be doing that.
So many good things are coming out of the garden this time of year…it makes all the cold, wet planting in spring worth it. Today we had a small grilled steak with a little chipotle spice and the remains of our crunchy potato salad from the weekend. Paired with a lovely mix of greens (mizuna, Simpson lettuce, romaine, and red leaf lettuce) topped with green onion and mushrooms, dressed in a balsamic Dijon vinaigrette, it truly was the taste of summer at its best.
We have lived in other jurisdictions where the middle of June seems like an unlikely start to summer. It’s already been hot for ages. But here in Atlantic Canada, even when the temperature is in the 20s (70s or 80s, my Fahrenheit friends), the wind is sufficient that it rarely feels hot.
But today we had an awesome, sunny, warmish day. And so we barbecued. This is the result. Veg from our garden, except local tomatoes and spuds.
We’ve just been going through albums looking at photos of our dads…and our kids with their dad. What a happy thing that is. But all that reminiscing was hard work, so we need a solid, manly breakfast. How about this? Leftover steak and mushroom pie from last night’s dinner…
Delicious!
The cold, damp weather made for an uninspiring grilling day yesterday, so instead, we thought we would make some Salisbury steak from our ground beef. A check of the larder revealed sufficient missing ingredients that we needed to improvise.
We started by putting 2 diced potatoes to boil – peel on, as they are great that way for a rustic mash.
We made two patties with lean ground beef (8 oz for two), a minced clove of garlic and a few tablespoons of minced onion (shallot if you’ve got it!) We cooked these in a tiny amount of olive oil in a nonstick pan, medium high heat for 3 minutes per side. Then they went on a plate in a 250F oven while we finished the sauce…
In the pan, sauté about 1/3 of an onion (diced) with a diced sweet pepper, until the onion is translucent. Add 1/2 c (125ml) marinara and red wine, and bring to a simmer. Slip the patties into the sauce, cover, and simmer long enough to steam some peas as a side dish. Turn the patties, mash the potatoes, and serve.
Comforting food on a chilly day.
We kept them warm
Finally the snow is receding and the barbecue is accessible. We are working on the “use what is on sale or in the freezer” methodology, and this week we found a great deal on local ground beef. So in addition to making a batch of meatballs for later in the week, we made tomato, avocado and bacon ( salute to the lovely Marianne) burgers. Yum!
The evenings are starting to cool off and the days are getting shorter. In just a few weeks I fear we will be faced with the f word…fall.
But for now there is plenty of tremendous produce in the garden to make salad, and we grilled these juicy burgers. Putting a dent in the middle (in tribute to our daughter’s man-friend, we call it “Paulito style”) keeps the patties from shrinking. They didn’t need much to top them off…tomatoes, pickles, a little grainy mustard and some relish.
For the salad dressing:
15ml/1T Dijon
15ml /1T sesame oil
30ml/2T orange juice
Whisk until smooth.
La princessa and her parents left this morning and now the house is eerily quiet. We’re so grateful to have had them with us for a few days, and glad they enjoyed our city by the sea.
Today is also the day we get our diet and exercise routine back on track – so here’s an easy meal to kick things off, for two:
Leftover grilled steak, about 250ml/1c, sliced thin
In a medium nonstick skillet, heat 5 ml each butter and olive oil, and cook, covered, just til tender:
1 sliced onion
2 sliced mushrooms
1 sliced green pepper
Add steak slices and a sprinkling of chipotle powder or a minced Jalapeño.
Serve over 500ml/2c mixed greens.
We’re fortunate to have greens from our own garden, but use a variety to make it more interesting.
Enjoy!
It’s coming! Spring has nearly sprung. Today we were at the Halifax Seaport Market and picked up a delicious steak from Pasture Hill Farm. That, with a few blue fingerlings and a salad seemed like it would be a heavenly choice. We were just tallying up our purchases and we spotted them: local grape tomatoes from Den Haan’s. I wish there was a recipe here, but this is it: grill steak, boil potato, make salad, dream of sprong
. Last night was The Man’s birthday and we celebrated with a prime rib roast. Today, the leftovers are in a redux of last week’s grilled salad:
Per plate:
Two good handfuls of baby greens
60-120g of sliced roast beef
Drizzling of sun-dried tomato dressing
15-30 ml of Dragon’s Breath Blue, crumbled over top
Nothing left to do but to enjoy!