Spicy Garden Salad with Grilled Steak

I could not decide what to make for dinner last night so I began perusing the local grocery store ads to see what was on sale.  There were good prices on bell peppers, vine ripe tomatoes and Hass avocados.  I decided with some nice produce and a beautiful warm sunny day, a salad would be perfect.  Since I always have to think about meeting the caloric needs of our sons, I decided to make it a steak salad.  I love different textures and flavors so I added some other fun ingredients as well.   I use beans in many of my recipes because of their nutritional value.    See the article, link below, for Garbanzo beans in particular: 

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=58

 Steak Marinade

1.5 – 2 lb flank steak

3 Tbs olive oil

1 Tbs sesame oil

2 Tbs soy sauce

2 tsp chili oil

1 Tbs rice vinegar

1 Tbs lime juice

1 tsp red pepper flakes

6 cloves of chopped garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all of the above ingredients in a mixing bowl

Lay out steak on a cutting board and make cross hatch cuts across both sides then place flat in a pan. Pour marinade over steak, cover and refrigerate.  Marinade about 6 hours, turning the steak occasionally

Salad

¼ – ½ each of a red, orange and yellow bell pepper, diced medinm

1 large tomato diced medium

10 radishes diced medium

1 large or 2 small avocados diced medium

½ small Vidalia onion, diced medium (Walla Walla’s would be good but were not available)

1 – 15 oz can garbanzo beans drained and rinsed

1 head green leaf lettuce torn into bite size pieces

Combine all of the above in a salad bowl. 

(When I was cutting up the salad and only had the onions, tomatoes and radishes in the bowl, I was tempted to put some balsamic vinegar and oil on it and call it good.  I think that would be a great recipe all by itself!)

Dressing

5 Tbs s oil (we always use very light olive oil)

1 Tbs sesame oil

2 Tbs rice vinegar

1 – 2 Tbs wasabi powder

1 Tbs honey

Dash cayenne pepper

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all of the above ingredients and then adjust any of them to your taste.

Grill the steak to your liking (instant read thermometer is the easiest way to get it right).  When it’s done to your preference, remove from heat and let it rest for 5 or 10 minutes. I’ve found that grilling the steak to medium rare at its thickest point helps to provide a variety of doneness for my picky critics.  Slice into thin bite-size strips.

Put dressing on salad and mix well.  Serve on individual plates or in bowls and place steak pieces on top.

Now take this light summer meal out onto your patio or deck and enjoy!

Cilantro Burgers

We don’t eat a lot of beef in general and when we do it is very rarely hamburger, but there is something about being by the lake in the sun that makes us crave our Cilantro Burgers. We have been making this burger and variations of it for 10 years or so but after one of the boys had a black and blue burger at a restaurant not so long ago we decided that adding blue cheese to this recipe would be ideal.  We tried it over the weekend and it really made these burgers amazing!

In a mixing bowl combine the following 6 ingredients

2 lbs very lean hamburger, the local store had 9% fat for their leanest

1 small red onion, chopped fine

6 – 8 cloves of garlic, chopped fine

1 bunch of cilantro, chopped fine

1 small jalapeno pepper, seeds and all for added spice, chopped fine,

Salt and pepper to taste

After these are all combined form them into small balls, each of which will be one half of a hamburger patty.   If you are making  4 -1/2 pound burgers you should have about 8 small balls of the mixture. (4 each for top and bottom halves)   If you are having trouble keeping the mixture together while forming the balls mix in one whole egg to bind it.

Form each of the balls into a patty and put them onto wax paper, maybe spread out on cookie sheets.  We use a small plastic hamburger press to get more uniform sized patties but I am sure it is not necessary.

1 small package of blue cheesed sliced, ours crumbled but that is OK

Put a slice of blue cheese, or handful of crumbles,  onto the center of the bottom half patties.  Set the other half of the patties on top and slightly crimp around the edges of each to make into one larger patty.

Grill until cooked to taste.  I am pretty sure there is nothing worse to eat than raw hamburger as well as not very safe, so make sure you cook them thoroughly.

We added cheddar cheese to the top of each burger just before done and provided toasted buns, dill chips, Dijon mustard, ketchup, horseradish sauce, tomato slices and lettuce for everyone to use as they chose.